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THE 


Dawn  of  a  New  Era 


BY 

DR.  PAUL  CARUS 


•     • —    3   / 
IftQQ 


CM  ECAGO 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

LONDON    AGENTS: 

Kegan  Paul.  Trench,  Triibner  &  Co..  I.t.l. 
1899 


XJL  r^r 


S'.  2LO  .2.2. 

iflrnm  titr  IGibrarg  af 

PrnfeaHor  S^njamttt  fBrtfrkmrftg?  Uarfirlft 

S?qu?ailjei  by  Ijtm  tn 

ilj?  Sahranj  of 

Pnnreton  dtyeolngirai  Seminary 


THE 


DAWN   OF  A  NEW  ERA 


AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 


BY       v/ 

DR.  PAUL  CARUS 


CHICAGO 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

LONDON  AGENTS 

Kegan  Paul,  Trench,  Trubner  &  Co.,  Ltd. 

i8qq 


CONTENTS 


The  Dawn  of  a  New  Religious  Era l 

The  New  Orthodoxy 2I 

The  Late  Professor  Romanes's  Thoughts  on  Religion    ...     31 


THE   DAWN    OF  A  NEW   RELIGIOUS 
ERA. 

THE  Parliament  of  Religions,  which  sat  in  Chicago 
from  September  1 1  to  September  27,  was  a  great 
surprise  to  the  world.  When  the  men  who  inaugurated 
it  invited  representatives  of  all  the  great  religions  of 
the  earth  to  meet  in  conference,  their  plan  was  looked 
upon  with  misgiving,  if  not  with  ridicule.  The  feasi- 
bility and  the  advisability  of  their  undertaking  were 
doubted.  The  greatest  and  most  powerful  churches, 
it  was  said,  would  not  be  represented.  The  Vatican, 
for  instance,  regards  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  as 
the  only  soul-saving  power,  with  exclusive  authority 
to  loose  or  bind.  To  allow  a  comparison  between  it 
and  other  churches  on  a  footing  of  equality,  to  appeal 
to  reason,  to  provoke  and  favor  such  an  appeal,  or  to 
submit  to  a  decision  after  argument,  would  be  tanta- 
mount to  the  recognition  of  reason,  or  logic,  or  science, 
as  a  higher  and  the  highest  test  of  truth.  Like  reasons, 
it  was  thought,  would  more  or  less  influence  other  de- 
nominations, for  almost  all  of  them  claim  to  be  based 
upon  a  special  divine  revelation  which  is  above  argu- 
ment, so  as  to  render  the  mere  doubt  of  it  sin. 

In  spite  of  all  these  doubts  and  fears,  the  Parlia- 
ment of  Religions  was  convened,  and  it  proved  an  ex- 


2  THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA. 

traordinary  success.  The  work  grew  rapidly  under  the 
hands  of  its  promoters,  so  that  the  time  originally  al- 
loted  to  it  had  to  be  increased  until  it  extended  over 
seventeen  days.  Although  discussion  had  been  ex- 
cluded from  the  programme  so  as  to  avoid  friction,  it 
could  not  be  entirely  controlled.  Nevertheless  a  good 
spirit  presided  over  all  the  sessions,  so  that  criticism 
promoted  a  closer  agreement  and  united  men  of  differ- 
ent faiths  more  strongly  in  bonds  of  mutual  respect 
and  toleration.  The  multitudes  that  filled  the  halls  at 
the  closing  session  were  animated  with  a  feeling  that 
the  Parliament  had  not  lasted  long  enough,  that  a 
movement  had  been  inaugurated  which  was  as  yet  only 
a  beginning  that  needed  further  development,  and  that 
we  should  stay  and  continue  the  work,  until  the  mus- 
tard-seed we  were  planting  should  become  a  tree  under 
whose  branches  the  birds  of  the  heavens  might  find  a 
dwelling-place. 

The  idea  of  holding  a  parliament  of  religions  is  not 
new.  It  was  proposed  and  attempted  on  a  smaller 
basis  in  former  times  by  Asiatic  rulers.  It  has  been 
predicted  and  longed  for  by  men  of  different  races  and 
various  religions.  Of  European  authors  we  may  men- 
tion Volney  who  in  his  "Ruins"  describes  minutely 
how  ' '  men  of  every  race  and  every  region,  the  European 
in  his  short  coat,  the  Asiatic  in  his  flowing  robes,  the 
African  with  ebony  skin,  the  Chinese  dressed  in  silk, 
assemble  in  an  allotted  place  to  form  a  great  religious 
congress." 

It  is  certain  that  similar  ideas  have  stirred  the 
hearts  of  many.  The  Shinto  High  Priest  of  the  Japa- 
nese State  Church,  the  Rt.  Rev.  Reuchi  Shibata  in  one 
of  his  speeches  said  :  "  Fourteen  years  ago  I  expressed 
in  my  own  country  the  hope  that  there  would  be  a 


THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA.  3 

friendly  meeting  of  the  world's  religionists,  and  now  I 
realise  my  hope  with  great  joy  in  being  able  to  attend 
this  phenomenal  congress." 

It  is  but  natural  that  this  sentiment  should  prevail 
in  Japan  where  three  religions,  which  closely  consid- 
ered are  by  no  means  compatible,  exist  peacefully  side 
by  side.  The  ancient  nature  worship  of  Shinto  was 
not  exterminated  when  the  doctrines  of  Confucius  were 
preached  and  accepted,  and  the  Buddhists  wage  no 
war  on  either.  Many  families  of  Japan  conform  to  the 
official  ceremonies  of  Shinto  ;  they  even  respect  its 
popular  superstitions,  and  have  their  children  taught 
the  precepts  of  the  great  Chinese  sage  as  set  forth  in 
the  book  of  rites  and  other  sacred  writings,  while  they 
themselves  seek  consolation  for  the  deeper  yearnings 
of  their  souls  in  the  wisdom  of  Buddha.  There  are 
for  these  three  religions  shrines  side  by  side  in  their 
homes  and  in  their  hearts. 

All  uncertainty  as  to  the  feasibility  of  the  gathering 
vanished  when  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  most  cor- 
dially accepted  the  invitation  to  take  part.  "We,  as 
the  mother  of  all  Christian  churches,"  said  Bishop 
Keane,  in  his  extemporaneous  and  unpublished  fare- 
well address,  "have  a  good  right  to  be  represented. 
Why  should  we  not  come?"  And  nearly  all  the  other 
denominational  representatives  thought  as  he  did. 
Whether  or  not  it  was  consistent  with  traditional  ortho- 
doxy, they  came  none  the  less.  So  powerful  was  the 
desire  for  a  religious  union,  representatives  of  the 
broadest  as  well  as  of  the  narrowest  views  met  in  fra- 
ternal co-operation  on  the  same  platform.  You  could 
see  such  an  evangelist  as  Joseph  Cook  sitting  by  the 
side  of  liberal  clergymen,  such  as  Jenkin  Lloyd  Jones, 
of  Chicago,  and  E.  L.  Rexford,  of  Boston.   And  these 


4  THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA. 

Christians  again  exchanged  cordial  greetings  with  the 
pagan  Hindus  and  the  atheistic  Buddhists  ;  an  unpre- 
cedented spectacle  ! 

And  it  was  a  spectacle  in  the  literal  sense  of  the 
word.  In  accord  with  American  simplicity,  the  men 
of  this  country  appeared  in  their  every-day  attire  and 
our  European  guests  wisely  followed  their  example. 
Nevertheless,  the  sight  was  often  picturesque.  Car- 
dinal Gibbons,  when  he  delivered  the  prayer  at  the 
opening  of  the  first  public  session,  wore  his  official 
crimson  robes.  The  prelates  of  the  Greek  Church, 
foremost  among  them  the  Most  Rev.  Dionysios  Latas, 
Archbishop  of  Zante,  looked  very  venerable  in  their 
sombre  vestments  and  Greek  cylindrical  hats.  The 
Shinto  High  Priest  Shibata  was  dressed  in  a  flowing 
garment  of  white,  decorated  with  curious  emblems, 
and  on  his  head  was  a  strangely-shaped  cap  wrought 
apparently  of  black  jet,  from  the  top  of  which  nodded 
mysteriously  a  feather-like  ornament  of  unknown  sig- 
nificance. Pung  Quang  Yu,  a  tall  and  stout  man,  an 
adherent  of  Confucius,  and  the  authorised  representa- 
tive of  the  Celestial  Empire,  appeared  in  Chinese 
dress.  There  were  present  several  Buddhist  bishops 
of  Japan,  in  dress  which  varied  from  violet  to  black. 
The  turbaned  Hindu  monk,  Swami  Vivekananda,  in  a 
long,  orange  gown,  who,  as  we  were  informed,  lived  in 
voluntary  poverty  so  that  as  a  rule  he  did  not  know 
where  he  would  receive  his  next  day's  meal ;  Dharma- 
pala,  the  Ceylonese  Buddhist,  in  his  robe  of  white  j — 
these  and  many  more  were  the  exceedingly  interesting 
men  who  appeared  upon  the  stage  and  spoke  their 
minds  freely  on  subjects  over  which  in  former  ages 
cruel  wars  were  waged.  Differences  not  only  of  reli- 
gious opinions  but  also  of  races  were  represented  in 


THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA.  5 

the  Congress.  Bishop  B.  W.  Arnet,  of  the  African 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  confessed  that  the  broth- 
erhood of  man  had  for  the  first  time  been  taken  seri- 
ously. When  introduced,  he  said,  "I  am  to  represent 
the  African,  and  have  been  invited  to  give  color  to  the 
Parliament  of  Religions."  Interrupted  by  a  storm  of 
merriment,  he  continued,  "  But  I  think  the  Parliament 
is  already  very  well  colored,  and  if  I  have  eyes,  I  think 
the  color  is  this  time  in  the  majority." 

The  Parliament  of  Religion  was,  I  repeat,  a  great 
spectacle;  but  it  was  more  than  that.  There  was  a 
purport  in  it.  It  powerfully  manifested  the  various  re- 
ligious yearnings  of  the  human  heart,  and  all  these 
yearnings  exhibited  a  longing  for  unity  and  mutual 
good  understanding.  How  greatly  they  mistake  who 
declare  that  mankind  is  drifting  toward  an  irreligious 
future  !  It  is  true  that  people  have  become  indifferent 
about  theological  subtleties,  but  they  still  remain  and 
will  remain  under  the  sway  of  religion;  and  the  churches 
are  becoming  more  truly  religious,  as  they  are  becom- 
ing less  sectarian. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  Christianity.  One  is  love 
and  charity;  it  wants  the  truth  brought  out  and  desires 
to  see  it  practically  applied  in  daily  life.  It  is  animated 
by  the  spirit  of  Jesus  and  tends  to  broaden  the  minds 
of  men.  The  other  is  pervaded  with  exclusiveness  and 
bigotry;  it  does  not  aspire  through  Christ  to  the  truth  ; 
but  takes  Christ,  as  tradition  has  shaped  his  life  and  doc- 
trines, to  be  the  truth  itself.  It  naturally  lacks  charity 
and  hinders  the  spiritual  growth  of  men.  The  latter 
kind  of  Christianity  has  always  been  looked  upon  as 
the  orthodox  and  the  only  true  Christianity.  It  has 
been  fortified  by  Bible  passages,  formulated  in  Qui- 
cunques,  indorsed  by  decisions  of  oecumenical  councils 


D  THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA. 

and  by  papal  bulls.  Tracts  privately  distributed  among 
the  visitors  to  the  Congress  contained  quotations  such 
as,  "Though  we  or  an  angel  from  heaven  preach  any 
other  Gospel  unto  you  than  that  we  have  preached 
unto  you,  let  him  be  accursed";  and  "He  that  be- 
lieveth  not  shall  be  condemned."  Without  using  the 
same  harsh  terms,  Saint  Peter  expressed  himself  not 
less  strongly,  in  a  speech  before  the  Jews  concerning 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  saying  :  "  Neither  is  there  salvation 
in  any  other  :  for  there  is  none  other  name  under  the 
heaven  given  among  men  whereby  we  must  be  saved." 
There  were  a  few  voices  heard  at  the  Parliament  of 
Religions  which  breathed  this  narrow  and  so-called 
orthodox  Christianity,  but  they  could  hardly  be  re- 
garded as  characterising  the  spirit  of  the  whole  enter- 
prise. They  really  served  as  a  contrast  by  which  the 
tolerant  principles  of  our  Oriental  guests  shone  the 
more  brightly.  "The  Hindu  fanatic,"  said  Viveka- 
nanda,  "burns  himself  on  the  pyre,  but  he  never  lights 
the  fagots  of  an  Inquisition  " ;  and  we  were  told  that 
Buddha  said  to  his  disciples,  "  I  forbid  you  to  believe 
anything  simply  because  I  said  it."  Even  Moham- 
medanism, generally  supposed  to  be  the  most  authori- 
tative of  all  religions,  appeared  mild  and  rational  as 
explained  by  Mohammed  Alexander  Russell  Webb. 
Mr.  Webb  said  :  "The  day  of  blind  belief  has  passed 
away.  Intelligent  humanity  wants  a  reason  for  every 
belief,  and  I  say  that  that  spirit  is  commendable  and 
should  be  encouraged,  and  it  is  one  of  the  prominent 
features  of  the  spirit  of  Islam."  At  one  of  the  meetings 
a  prayer  was  offered  for  those  blind  heathen  who  at- 
tended the  Congress,  that  God  might  have  mercy  on 
them  and  open  their  eyes,  so  that  they  would  see  their 
own  errors  and  accept  the  truth  of  Christianity ;  but 


THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA.  7 

the  prayer,  made  in  the  spirit  of  the  old  bigoted  Chris- 
tianity which  believes  in  the  letter  and  loses  the  spirit, 
found  an  echo  neither  in  the  hearts  of  our  foreign 
guests  nor  among  the  men  who  had  convened  the  Con- 
gress nor  among  the  audience  who  listened  to  the 
prayer.  Far  from  being  converted,  the  heathen  dele- 
gates took  the  opportunity  of  denouncing  Christian 
missionaries  for  their  supercilious  attitude  and  for  mak- 
ing unessential  things  essential.  For  instance,  the  mis- 
sionaries, they  said,  demand  that  the  Hindus  abolish 
caste,  and  treat  the  refusal  to  eat  meat  as  a  pagan  pre- 
judice, so  that  in  the  Hindu  mind  "  Christian "  has 
come  to  mean  "carnivorous."  One  of  the  delegates,  a 
Brahman  layman,  said:  "With  the  conqueror's  pride 
they  cannot  bring  themselves  down,  or  rather  cannot 
bring  themselves  up  to  practise  the  humility  which 
they  preach."  B.  B.  Nagarkar,  of  Bombay,  expressed 
himself  more  guardedly.     Said  he  : 

' '  Sad  will  be  the  day  for  India  when  Christian  missionaries 
cease  to  come  ;  for  we  have  much  to  learn  about  Christ  and  Chris- 
tian civilisation.  They  do  some  good  work.  But  if  converts  are 
the  measures  of  their  success,  we  have  to  say  that  their  work  is  a 
failure.  Little  do  you  dream  that  your  money  is  expended  in 
spreading  abroad  nothing  but  Christian  dogmatism,  Christian  big- 
otry, Christian  pride,  and  Christian  exclusiveness.  I  entreat  you 
to  expend  one-tenth  only  of  your  vast  sacrifices  in  sending  out  to 
our  country  unsectarian,  broad  missionaries  who  will  devote  their 
energy  to  educating  our  men  and  women.  Educated  men  will  un- 
derstand Christ  better  than  those  whom  you  convert  to  the  narrow 
creed  of  some  cant  Christianity." 

The  severest  rebuke  came  from  the  lips  of  the  rep- 
resentative of  Jainism,  and  from  the  monk  Viveka- 
nanda.  The  latter  denounced  Christian  missionaries 
for  offering  stones  instead  of  bread.  They  build 
churches,  he  said,  and  preach  sectarian   creeds  which 


8  THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA. 

benefit  no  one.  They  despise  the  sacred  traditions  of 
the  Hindu,  the  profundity  of  which  they  are  unable  to 
fathom;  and,  he  added,  "What  shall  we  think  of  a 
religion  whose  missionaries  distribute  food  in  a  famine 
to  the  starving  people  on  the  condition  of  conversion?" 
These  were  hard  reproaches,  yet  they  were  accepted 
by  the  Christians  with  good  grace.*  The  Rev.  R.  G. 
Hume  of  India  said,  "We  are  willing  to  have  our  Bud- 

*This  passage  was  much  commented  upon  in  various  newspapers  and  re- 
ligious journals,  and  it  appears  that  the  writer's  attitude  has  been  misunder- 
stood. 

That  several  hard  reproaches  "  were  accepted  by  the  Christians  with  good 
grace  "  is  not  a  slight,  not  a  rebuke,  but  a  praise.  It  is  very  doubtful  whether 
a  Mohammedan  or  any  other  but  a  Christian  audience  would  have  been  so 
patient  as  to  listen  good-naturedly  to  similar  censures.  Forbearance  is  always 
a  symptom  of  strength  None  but  the  strong  can  afford  to  be  generous  and 
tolerant.     Compare  p.  18,  lines  13-18  of  this  article. 

Among  the  comments  that  came  to  our  notice  the  National  Baptist  of  No- 
vember 23  discusses  Vivekananda's  statement  under  the  caption,  -'A  False 
Accusation."  Dr.  S.  W.  Duncan  writes  :  "  I  hope  Bishop  Keane's  denuncia- 
tion was  honest  and  not  a  covert  fling  at  Protestants I  suspect  if  the  Hindu 

monk  had  told  the  whole  truth,  all  he  knew,  he  would  have  been  compelled  to 
mention  by  name  Roman  Catholics.  Dr.  Bunker  has  recently  given  me  in- 
stances of  his  being  frustrated  in  his  work  by  Catholic  priests  preceding  him 
in  heathen  villages,  and  buying  up  the  chiefs,  giving  them  money  and  other 
considerations  of  weight  with  heathen,  for  their  acceptance  of  crucifixes  and 
Romish  rites  and  enrollment  as  Catholics.  I  have  made  inquiry,  and  there  is 
not  on  record  a  single  intimation  that  any  one  of  our  missionaries  has  ever 
thus  abused  his  holy  calling." 

We  have  a  good  opinion  of  Baptist  missions,  and  know  at  the  same  time 
that  Roman  Catholic  missionaries,  among  them  the  much-reviled  Jesuits,  have 
shown  an  admirable  devotion  to  the  cause  of  their  religion. 

Supposing  Vivekananda's  accusation  to  be  true  of  some  Christian  mis- 
sionaries, we  do  not  take  it  to  mean  a  wholesale  condemnation  of  all.  Nor  do 
we  wish  to  pour  cold  water  upon  the  missionary  zeal.  The  missionary  spirit 
is  the  index  of  the  spiritual  life  of  a  religion,  and  we  are  glad  to  see  it  in  Bud- 
dhists not  less  than  in  Christians.  But  we  are  sorry  that  the  broad  religious 
spirit  which  pervaded  the  Parliament  and  is  present  among  the  Unitarians 
and  other  liberal  institutions,  is  too  weak  to  undertake  any  great  propaganda 
for  their  cause.  How  much  more  effective  would  Christian  missionaries  be  if 
they  taught  religion  instead  of  dogmas,  and  love  of  truth  instead  of  blind  faith. 

The  Louisville  Record  of  November  30  calls  Vivekananda's  statement  slan- 
der, and  adds  :  "  When  will  we  get  over  the  harm  done  by  the  World's  Parlia- 
ment of  Religions?"  This  reminds  us  of  the  parable  of  the  sower,  where 
Christ  says :  "  Some  [seeds]  fell  upon  stony  ground." 


THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA.  g 

dhistic  and  Brahman  friends  tell  us  how  we  can  do 
better.  Any  one  who  will  help  us  to  be  more  humble 
and  more  wise  will  do  us  good  and  we  will  thank  him 
whoever  he  be."  And  Bishop  Keane,  Rector  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  University  at  Washington,  was  not 
lacking  in  this  broad  religious  spirit.  "  I  indorse,"  said 
the  Bishop,  impressively,  "  the  denunciation  hurled 
against  the  system  of  pretended  charity  that  offered 
food  to  the  hungry  Hindus  at  the  cost  of  their  con- 
science and  their  faith.  It  is  a  shame  and  disgrace  to 
all  who  call  themselves  Christians.  And  if  Vivekananda 
by  his  criticism  can  only  stir  us  and  sting  us  into  better 
teachings  and  better  doings  in  the  great  work  of  Christ, 
I  for  one  shall  be  profoundly  grateful  to  our  friend  the 
great  Hindu  monk." 

This  is  the  true  catholicity  of  the  religion  of  man- 
kind, and  coming  from  the  lips  of  a  Roman  Catholic 
bishop,  it  did  not  fail  to  find  a  joyous  and  powerful  re- 
sponse in  the  audience.  To  the  honor  of  our  Hindu 
friends  we  have  to  add  that  the  fairness  and  impartial 
love  of  justice  with  which  their  remarks  were  accepted 
by  a  Christian  audience,  as  well  as  by  their  Christian 
brethren  on  the  platform,  were  unhesitatingly  recog- 
nised. Said  one  of  them,  "  The  tolerance,  the  kind- 
liness, nay,  the  patience  with  which  you  listen  to  the 
enumeration  of  your  faults,  this  sympathy  with  the 
wrong  done  to  heathendom  by  Christianity,  makes  me 
believe  that  we  have  all  advanced  and  are  advancing 
wonderfully." 

Heretofore,  the  broad  Christianity  has  always  been 
regarded  as  heretical ;  but  as  this  Parliament  proves, 
times  have  changed.  Judging  from  what  we  witnessed 
at  Chicago,  the  official  representatives  of  almost  all  re- 
ligions speak  a  new  language.   The  narrowness  of  past 


IO  THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA. 

ages  is  now  felt  to  be  due  to  imperfect  views  of  the 
truth,  and  we  recognise  the  duty  to  pass  beyond  it  to 
a  higher  and  grander  conception.  There  are  still  rep- 
resentatives of  the  narrow  spirit  left,  but  their  position 
becomes  more  and  more  untenable.  What  does  it 
matter  that  previous  oecumenical  councils  did  not  stand 
upon  a  broad  platform?  Does  not  religion  grow?  Was 
the  present  Parliament  of  Religions  not  oecumenical? 
And  has  the  holy  spirit  of  religious  progress  ceased  to 
be  a  presence  in  mankind?  If  ever  any  council  was 
oecumenical,  it  was  this  gathering  at  Chicago  ;  and  al- 
though no  resolutions  were  passed,  there  were  a  cer- 
tain harmony  in  matters  of  faith  and  a  consciousness 
of  that  which  is  essential,  such  as  were  never  mani- 
fested before. 

The  narrow  Christianity  will  disappear,  for  its  er- 
rors have  become  palpable.  There  are  still  remaining 
some  prophets  of  the  trust  in  a  blind  faith,  but  their 
influence  is  on  the  wane.  Liberals  are  inclined  to  sus- 
pect the  motives  of  the  believers  in  the  letter,  but  they 
judge  without  charity.  The  narrow-minded  Christian 
dogmatists  are. neither  false  nor  hypocritical,  for  we 
have  ample  evidence  of  their  earnestness  and  their 
simple-minded  piety.  Yet  they  are  mistaken.  They 
are  deficient  in  insight  and  they  lack  in  understanding. 
We  shall  have  to  educate  them  and  teach  them  that 
the  gentle  spirit  of  Christ  is  not  with  them,  but  marches 
on  with  the  progressive  part  of  mankind  to  the  planes 
of  a  higher  evolution. 

We  all  of  us  have  learned  much  during  these  con- 
gresses. Our  foreign  guests  have  learned  to  know 
Christianity  better  than  it  appeared  to  them  in  the  con- 
duct of  Christians  and  in  sermons  and  Sunday-schools, 
and  we  in  turn  have  learned  to  respect  not  only  the 


THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA.  I  I 

love  of  truth  and  earnestness  of  pagans,  but  also  their 
philosophical  capacity. 

The  narrow  Christianity  was  represented  by  a  few 
speakers  and  the  audience  endured  them  with  great 
patience  ;  but  we  can  fairly  ignore  them  here  ;  for  there 
is  no  need  of  reviewing  or  recapitulating  sermons  which 
every  one  who  desires  can  enjoy  in  our  various  ortho- 
dox churches.  Dr.  Briggs  represented  progressive 
theology  and  insisted  that  religion  must  face  the  criti- 
cism of  science.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Mozoomdar  is  the 
leader  of  a  similar  movement  in  India.  The  Brahmo 
Somaj,  which  he  and  the  able  Secretary  of  the  Asso- 
ciation, Mr.  B.  B.  Nagarkar  of  Bombay,  represented, 
may  be  characterised  as  Hindu  Unitarianism.  Max 
Muller  and  Henry  Drummond  sent  brief  papers  which 
showed  the  warm  sympathy  of  the  authors  and  their 
substantial  agreement  with  the  spirit  of  the  Parliament 
of  Religions. 

It  is  impossible  to  analyse  the  details  of  the  various 
views  presented  j  but  a  few  quotations  from  the 
speeches  of  our  heathen  friends  whom  we  had  not  the 
pleasure  of  meeting  before,  will  not  be  out  of  place. 

Vivekananda  explained  the  central  idea  of  the  Ve- 
das  as  follows  : 

"  I  humbly  beg  to  differ  from  those  who  see  in  monotheism,  in 
the  recognition  of  a  personal  God  apart  from  nature,  the  acme  of 
intellectual  development.  I  believe  it  is  only  a  kind  of  anthropo- 
morphism which  the  human  mind  stumbles  upon  in  its  first  efforts 
to  understand  the  unknown.  The  ultimate  satisfaction  of  human 
reason  and  emotion  lies  in  the  realisation  of  that  universal  essence 
which  is  the  All.  And  I  hold  an  irrefragable  evidence  that  this 
idea  is  present  in  the  Veda,  the  numerous  gods  and  their  invoca- 
tions notwithstanding.  This  idea  of  the  formless  All,  the  Sat,  i.  e., 
esse,  or  Being  called  Atman  and  Brahman  in  the  Upanishads,  and 
further  explained  in  the  Darsanas,  is  the  central  idea  of  the  Veda 
nay,  the  root  idea  of  the  Hindu  religion  in  general." 


12  THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA. 

On  another  occasion  the  same  speaker  dwelt  on  the 
idea  of  this  panentheism  with  reference  to  the  soul. 
Though  recognising  law  in  the  world,  he  repudiated 
materialism.  The  soul  has  tendencies,  he  said,  and 
these  tendencies  have  been  caused  by  past  actions  in 
former  incarnations.  Science  explains  everything  by 
habits,  and  habits  are  acquired  by  repetition.  That 
we  do  not  remember  the  acts  done  in  our  previous 
states  of  existence  is  due  to  the  fact  that  consciousness 
is  the  surface  only  of  the  mental  ocean,  and  our  past 
experiences  are  stored  in  its  depths  The  wheel  of 
causation  rushes  on,  crushing  everything  in  its  way, 
and  waits  not  for  the  widow's  tear  or  the  orphan's  cry. 
Yet  there  is  consolation  and  hope  in  the  idea  that  the 
soul  is  immortal  and  we  are  children  of  eternal  bliss. 
The  Hindu  refuses  to  call  men  sinners  ;  he  calls  them 
"children  of  immortal  bliss."  Death  means  only  a 
change  of  centre  from  one  body  to  another.  He  con- 
tinued : 

"The  Vedas  proclaim,  not  a  dreadful  combination  of  unfor- 
giving laws,  not  an  endless  prison  of  cause  and  effect,  but  that,  at 
the  head  of  all  these  laws,  in  and  through  every  particle  of  matter 
and  force,  stands  One  through  whose  command  the  wind  blows, 
the  fire  burns,  the  clouds  rain,  and  death  stalks  upon  the  earth. 
And  what  is  his  nature  ?  He  is  everywhere,  the  pure  and  formless 
one,  the  Almighty  and  the  All-merciful.  '  Thou  art  our  Father, 
thou  art  our  mother,  thou  art  our  beloved  friend,  thou  art  the 
source  of  all  strength.  Thou  art  He  that  beareth  the  burdens  of 
the  universe;  help  me  bear  the  little  burden  of  this  life.'  Thus 
sang  the  Rishis  of  the  Veda.  And  how  to  worship  him  ?  Through 
love.  '  He  is  to  be  worshipped  as  the  one  beloved,  dearer  than 
everything  in  this  and  in  the  next  life.'  " 

The  breadth  of  Vivekananda's  religious  views  ap- 
peared when  he  said : 

"  The  same  light  shines  through  all  colors,  and  in  the  heart  of 
everything  the  same  truth  reigns.     The  Lord  has  declared  to  the 


THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS   ERA.  I  3 

Hindu  in  his  incarnation  as  Krishna,  '  I  am  in  every  religion,  as 
the  thread  through  a  string  of  pearls,  and  wherever  thou  seest  ex- 
traordinary holiness  and  extraordinary  power  raising  and  purifying 
humanity  know  ye  that  I  am  there. '  " 

Parseeism,  the  noble  religion  of  Zarathustra,  re- 
ceived scholarly  treatment  by  Jinanji  Jamshedji  Modi 
who  repudiated  its  dualism  and  represented  it  as  pure 
monotheism,  while  he  satisfactorily  explained  the  sym- 
bolism of  the  sacred  fire.  In  this  way  almost  every 
religion  was  raised  to  a  higher  standpoint,  than  it  is 
usually  understood  to  have,  by  its  representatives,  and 
even  idolatry  found  adroit  champions  in  the  Congress. 

Said  Vivekananda : 

' '  It  may  be  said  without  the  least  fear  of  contradiction  that  no 
Indian  idolator,  as  such,  believes  the  piece  of  stone,  metal,  or  wood 
before  his  eyes  to  be  his  god  in  any  sense  of  the  word.  He  takes 
it  only  as  a  symbol  of  the  all-pervading  Godhood,  and  uses  it  as  a 
convenient  object  for  purposes  of  concentration,  which  being  ac- 
complished, he  does  not  hesitate  to  throw  it  away." 

Prince  Momolu  Massaquoi,  son  of  a  native  king 
from  the  Wey  Territory  of  the  West  Coast  of  Africa,  a 
fine-looking  youth  of  good  education,  which  he  had 
received  in  an  American  college  after  his  conversion 
to  Christianity,  spoke  in  the  same  way  with  Viveka- 
nanda concerning  the  idolatry  of  African  natives. 

Mohammedanism,  in  addition  to  its  representation 
by  Moslems,  was  critically  reviewed  by  the  Rev.  George 
Washburn,  President  of  Robert  College,  Constantino- 
ple, who  showed  its  points  of  contact  and  disagree- 
ment with  Christianity.  He  quoted  passages  from  the 
Koran  which,  in  contrast  to  Mr.  Webb's  exposition, 
prove  the  exclusiveness  of  Mohammed's  religion.  The 
third  sura,  for  instance,  declares  : 

"Whoever  followeth  any  other  religion  than  Islam,  shall  not 
be  accepted,  and  at  the  last  day  he  shall  be  of  those  that  perish  1 " 


14  THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA. 

Dr.  Washburn's  quotation  from  the  Koran  reminds 
us  of  similar  passages  in  the  New  Testament ;  the  old 
orthodoxy  of  the  Moslems,  however,  is  giving  way  to 
broader  views.  Tout  comme  chez  nous!  Dr.  Washburn 
quoted  the  following  Mohammedan  hymn,  composed 
by  Shereef  Hanoom,  a  Turkish  lady  of  Constantinople, 
and  translated  by  the  Rev.  H.  O.  Dwight,  which  re- 
minds us  strongly  of  our  best  modern  Christian  poetry: 

"O  source  of  kindness  and  of  love, 
O  give  us  aid  or  hopes  above, 
'Mid  grief  and  guilt  although  I  grope, 
From  thee  I'll  ne'er  cut  off  my  hope, 
My  Lord,  O  my  Lord  ! 

•'Thou  King  of  Kings,  dost  know  my  need, 

Thy  pardoning  grace,  no  bars  can  heed  ; 

Thou  lov'st  to  help  the  helpless  one 

And  bid'st  his  cries  of  fear  be  gone, 

My  Lord,  O  my  Lord  ! 

M  Shouldst  thou  refuse  to  still  my  fears, 
Who  else  will  stop  to  dry  my  tears? 
For  I  am  guilty,  guilty  still, 
No  other  one  has  done  so  ill, 
My  Lord,  O  my  Lord  ! 

"  The  lost  in  torment  stand  aghast, 
To  see  this  rebel's  sins  so  vast ; 

What  wonder,  then,  that  Shereef  cries 

For  mercy,  mercy,  ere  she  dies, 
My  Lord,  O  my  Lord  !  " 

Prof.  Minas  Tcheraz,  an  Armenian  Christian,  when 
sketching  the  history  of  the  Armenian  Church,  said 
sarcastically  that  real  Mohammedanism  was  quite  dif- 
ferent from  the  Islam  represented  by  Mr.  Webb.  This 
may  be  true,  but  Mr.  Webb  might  return  the  compli- 
ment and  say  that  true  Christianity  as  it  showed  itself 
in  deeds  such  as  the  Crusades,  is  quite  different  from 


THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA.  1 5 

that  ideal  which  its  admirers  claim  it  to  be.  Similar 
objections,  that  the  policy  of  Christian  nations  showed 
very  little  the  love  and  meekness  of  Jesus,  were  indeed 
made  by  Mr.  Hirai,  a  Buddhist  of  Japan.  We  Chris- 
tians have  reason  enough  to  be  charitable  in  judging 
others. 

Buddhism  was  strongly  represented  by  delegates 
from  Ceylon,  Siam,  and  Japan.  H.  R.  H.  Chandradat 
Chudhadharn,  Prince  of  Siam,  sent  a  paper  which 
contained  a  brief  exposition  of  Buddhistic  principles. 
There  are  four  noble  truths  according  to  Buddha. 
These  are  (i)  the  existence  of  suffering  ;  (2)  the  rec- 
ognition of  ignorance  as  the  cause  of  suffering  ;  (3) 
the  extinction  of  suffering  by  the  cessation  of  the  three 
kinds  of  lust  arising  from  ignorance ;  and  (4)  the  eight 
paths  that  lead  to  the  cessation  of  lust.  These  eight 
paths  constitute  the  way  of  salvation  and  are  (1) 
right  understanding ;  (2)  right  resolutions  ;  (3)  right 
speech  ;  (4)  right  acts  ;  (5)  the  right  way  of  earning  a 
livelihood  ;  (6)  right  efforts  ;  (7)  right  meditation  ;  and 
(8)  the  right  state  of  the  mind.  The  Japanese  Bud- 
dhists are  men  of  philosophical  depth  and  genius,  and 
might  have  made  a  deeper  impression  than  they  did  if 
they  had  been  more  familiar  with  Western  thought. 
They  left,  however,  behind  them  a  number  of  pam- 
phlets for  free  distribution  by  the  Bukkyo  Gakkuwai, 
a  society  at  Tokio  whose  sole  purpose  is  the  propaga- 
tion of  Buddhism.*     The  missionary  zeal  of  thejapa- 

*  These  are  the  titles  of  the  Japanese  missionary  tracts  in  my  possession: 
Outlines  of  the  Mahayana  as  taught  by  Buddha,  by  S.  Kuroda,  Superintendent 
of  Education  of  the  Jodo-Sect ;  The  Sutra  of  Forty-two  Sections  and  Two  Other 
Short  Sutras,  translated  from  the  Chinese  originals  (The  Buddhist  Propaga- 
tion Society:  Kyoto,  Japan,  1892) ;  A  Shin-Shin  Catechism,  by  S.  Kato  of  the 
Hongwanjiha  of  the  Shin-Shiu  sect  of  Japan  (The  Buddhist  Propagation  So- 
ciety, Kyoto,  Japan,  1893);  The  Skeleton  of  a  Philosophy  of  Religion,  by  the  Rev. 
Prof.  M.  Tokunaga,  translated  by  Zenshiro  Noguchi  (Tokio,  Kawai  Bunkodo 


l6  THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA. 

nese  Buddhists  shows  that  there  is  life  in  Buddhism. 
The  Rt.  Rev.  Ashitsu  concluded  his  article  on  the 
teachings  of  Buddha  with  the  following  words  : 

"You  know  very  well  that  our  sunrise  island  of  Japan  is  noted 
for  its  beautiful  cherry-tree  flowers.  But  you  do  not  know  that 
our  country  is  also  the  kingdom  where  the  flowers  of  truth  are 
blooming  in  great  beauty  and  profusion  at  all  seasons.  Visit  Ja- 
pan, and  do  not  forget  to  take  home  with  you  the  truth  of  Bud- 
dhism. All  hail  the  glorious  spiritual  spring-day,  when  the  song 
and  odor  of  truth  invite  you  all  out  to  our  country  for  the  search 
of  holy  paradise!" 

One  quotation  from  the  Japanese  missionary  tracts 
will  suffice  to  prove  that  the  ancient  teachings  of  Gau- 
tama are  still  preserved  among  his  adherents  of  the 
present  generation  of  Japan.  In  "The  Sutra  of  Forty- 
two  Sections"  we  read  on  page  3  : 

"Buddha  said  :  If  a  man  foolishly  does  me  wrong,  I  will  re- 
turn to  him  the  protection  of  my  ungrudging  love.  The  more  evil 
comes  from  him,  the  more  good  shall  go  from  me.  The  fragrance 
of  goodness  always  comes  to  me,  and  the  harmful  air  of  evil  goes  to 
him.  .  .  . 

"Buddha  said  :  A  wicked  man  who  reproaches  a  virtuous  one 
is  like  one  who  looks  up  and  spits  at  heaven  ;  the  spittle  soils  not 
the  heaven,  but  comes  back  and  defiles  his  own  person.  So  again, 
he  is  like  one  who  flings  dust  at  another  when  the  wind  is  contrary, 
the  dust  will  return  to  him  who  threw  it.  The  virtuous  man  can- 
not be  hurt,  and  the  misery  that  the  other  would  inflict  falls  back 
on  himself." 

The  Parliament  of  Religions  is  undoubtedly  the 
most  noteworthy  event  of  this  decade.  What  are  the 
World's  Fair  and  its  magnificent  splendor  in  compari- 
son with  it?     Or  what  the  German  Army  Bill,  the  Irish 

&  Co.,  1893);  Outlines  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Nichiren  Sect,  by  Nissatsu  Arai, 
the  lately  lamented  Dai-sojO.  With  the  life  of  Nichiren,  the  founder  of  the 
Nichiren  Sect,  edited  by  the  Central  Office  of  the  Nichiren  Sect,  Tokio,  Ja- 
pan, A.  D.  1893. 


THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA.  1 7 

Home  Rule  Bill  in  England  and  its  drastic  episodes  in 
the  House  of  Parliament,  or  a  change  of  party  in  the 
United  States?  It  is  evident  that  from  its  date  we  shall 
have  to  begin  a  new  era  in  the  evolution  of  man's  reli- 
gious life. 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  the  pentecost  of  Chris- 
tianity which  took  place  after  the  departure  of  Christ 
from  his  disciples.  But  this  Parliament  of  Religions 
was  analogous  in  many  respects,  and  it  may  give  us  an 
idea  of  what  happened  at  Jerusalem  nearly  two  thou- 
sand years  ago.  A  holy  intoxication  overcame  the 
speakers  as  well  as  the  audience  ;  and  no  one  can  con- 
ceive how  impressive  the  whole  proceeding  was,  unless 
he  himself  saw  the  eager  faces  of  the  people  and  im- 
bibed the  enthusiasm  that  enraptured  the  multitudes. 

Any  one  who  attended  these  congresses  must  have 
felt  the  thrill' of  the  divine  spirit  that  was  moving 
through  the  minds  of  the  congregation.  We  may  rest 
assured  that  the  event  is  greater  than  its  promoters 
ever  dreamed  of.  They  builded  better  than  they  knew. 
How  small  are  we  mortal  men  who  took  an  active  part 
in  the  Parliament  in  comparison  with  the  movement 
which  it  inaugurated  !  And  this  movement  indicates 
the  extinction  of  the  old  narrowness  and  the  beginning 
of  a  new  era  of  broader  and  higher  religious  life. 

It  is  proposed  that  another  Parliament  of  Religions 
be  convened  in  the  year  1900  at  the  ancient  city  of 
Bombay,  where  we  may  find  a  spiritual  contrast  be- 
tween the  youngest  city  and  the  oldest,  and  pay  a  trib- 
ute from  the  daughter  to  the  mother.  Other  appro- 
priate places  for  Religious  Parliaments  would  be  Jeru- 
salem, the  Holy  City  of  three  great  religions,  or  some 
port  of  Japan  where  Shintoism,  Confucianism,  Bud- 
dhism,   and   Christianity   peacefully   develop   side   by 


l8  THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA. 

side,  exhibiting  conditions  which  invite  a  comparison 
fair  to  all? 

Whether  or  not  the  Parliament  of  Religions  be  re- 
peated, whether  or  not  its  work  will  be  continued,* 
the  fact  remains  that  this  congress  at  Chicago  will 
exert  a  lasting  influence  upon  the  religious  intelli- 
gence of  mankind.  It  has  stirred  the  spirits,  stimu- 
lated mental  growth,  and  given  direction  to  man's  fur- 
ther evolution.  It  is  by  no  means  an  agnostic  move- 
ment, for  it  is  carried  on  the  wings  of  a  religious  faith 
and  positive  certainty.  It  is  decidedly  a  child  of  the 
old  religions,  and  Christianity  is  undoubtedly  still  the 
leading  star.  That  the  faults  of  Christianity  have  been 
more  severely  rebuked  than  those  of  any  other  religion 
should  not  be  interpreted  to  mean  that  the  others  are 
in  every  respect  better,  for  the  censure  is  but  a  sign 
that  points  to  the  purification  of  Christianity.  The 
dross  is  discarded,  but  the  gold  will  remain. 

The  religion  of  the  future,  as  the  opinions  presented 
indicate,  will  be  that  religion  which  can  rid  itself  of 
all  narrowness,  of  all  demand  for  blind  subordination, 
of  the  sectarian  spirit,  and  of  the  Phariseeism  which 
takes  it  for  granted  that  its  own  devotees  alone  are 
good  and  holy,  while  the  virtues  of  others  are  but  pol- 
ished vices.  The  religion  of  the  future  cannot  be  a 
creed  upon  which  the  scientist  must  turn  his  back,  be- 
cause it  is  irreconcilable  with  the  principles  of  science. 
Religion  must  be  in  perfect  accord  with  science  ;  for 

*It  may  be  well  to  add,  and  those  who  are  interested  in  the  religious  de- 
velopment of  mankind  may  be  glad  to  know,  that  the  work  of  the  Parliament 
of  Religions  maybe  continued.  Under  Mr.  Bonney's  direction  a  local  com- 
mittee has  been  formed  among  the  members  of  which  are  Dr.  Bristol,  Dr. 
Thomas,  Dr.  Gilbert,  Dr.  Dellano,  Mrs.  Harbert,  and  the  writer  of  this  article. 
The  committee  is  in  connexion  with  advisory  councils  all  over  the  world, 
and  it  has  been  decided  to  name  the  new  movement  "The  World's  Religious 
Parliament  Extension." 


THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA.  19 

science — and  I  mean  here  not  the  private  opinions  and 
hypotheses  of  single  scientists — is  not  an  enterprise  of 
human  frailty.  Science  is  divine,  and  the  truth  of 
science  is  a  revelation  of  God.  Through  science  God 
speaks  to  us ;  by  science  he  shows  us  the  glory  of  his 
works  ;  and  in  science  he  teaches  us  his  will.* 

«We  love  science,"  said  a  Catholic  priest,  of  Paris, 
at  one  of  the  sessions  in  the  scientific  section,  when  pro- 
testing against  a  thoughtless  remark  of  a  speaker  who 
broadly  accused  the  clergy  of  being  opposed  to  science. 
"We  love  science,"  Father  D'Arby  said,  emphatically; 
"the  office  of  science  in  religion  is  to  prune  it  of  fan- 
tastic outgrowths.  Without  science  religion  would 
become  superstition." 

The  human  soul  consists  of  two  elements,  self  and 
truth.  Self  is  the  egotistical  desire  of  being  some  in- 
dependent little  deity,  and  truth  is  the  religious  long- 
ing for  making  our  soul  a  dwelling-place  of  God.  The 
existence  of  self  is  an  illusion  ;  and  there  is  no  wrong 
in  this  world,  no  vice,  no  sin  except  what  flows  from 
the  assertion  of  self.  Truth  has  a  wonderful  peculiar- 
ity: it  is  inexhaustible,  and  it,  likewise,  demands  a 
constantly  renewed  application.  An  increase  of  knowl- 
edge involves  always  an  increase  of  problems  that  en- 
tice the  inquiring  mind  to  penetrate  deeper  and  deeper 
into  the  mysteries  of  being,  and  however  serious  and 
truth-loving  we  may  have  been,  there  is  always  occa- 
sion to  be  more  faithful  in  the  attendance  to  our  obli- 
gations and  daily  duties.  Self  shrivels  our  hearts  ; 
truth  makes  them  expand  ;  and  the  ultimate  aim  of  re- 

*This  view  of  a  religion  of  science  was  presented  by  the  writer  before  the 
Parliament  in  an  address  entitled  Science  a  Religious  Revelation  (published  in 
pamphlet  form  by  the  Open  Court  Publishing  Co.) 


20  THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGIOUS  ERA. 

ligion  is  to  eliminate  self  and  let  man  become  an  em- 
bodiment of  truth,  an  incarnation  of  God. 

We  must  welcome  the  light  from  whatever  source 
it  comes,  and  we  must  hail  the  truth  wherever  we  find 
it.  There  is  but  one  religion,  the  religion  of  truth. 
There  is  but  one  piety,  it  is  the  love  of  truth.  There  is 
but  one  morality,  it  is  the  earnest  desire  of  leading  a 
life  of  truth.  And  the  religion  of  the  future  can  only 
be  the  Religion  of  Truth. 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY. 


ORTHODOXY  is  the  confidence  that  a  certain  prop- 
osition is  right  and  that   all  other  propositions 
which  contradict  it  are  wrong.     Accordingly,   ortho- 
doxy, or  Tightness  of  opinion,  is  the  natural  aim   of 
both  science  and  religion,  and  what  we  need  most  in 
our    churches,    schools,    and    universities    is    genuine 
orthodoxy.      But  how  shall  we  obtain  it?     Is  not  or- 
thodoxy,  perhaps,   a  fata  morgana,   an  unsubstantial 
vision  which  eludes  our  groping  hand  and  surrenders 
us  to  the  illusion  of  blind  faith?     Indeed,  it  has  come 
to   pass   in   these   days  in   which   agnosticism   is   the 
fashionable  philosophy  of  the  time,  that  a  religious 
indifference   like  a  spiritual  blight  has  taken  a  strong 
hold  of  the  human  mind  so  as  to  discredit  any  kind  of 
orthodoxy,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  vanity  of  all  faith, 
be  it  scientific  or  religious,  has  come  to  be  recognised 
as  the  sum  of  all  human  wisdom.      But  the  very  exis- 
tence of  science  plainly  demonstrates  that  whatever 
errors  we  may  have  inherited  from  the  scientists  and 
the  religious  teachers  of  the  past,  we  must  never  lose 
faith  in  the  ideal  of  Orthodoxy,  which  implies  that 
there  is  truth  and  error,  that  the  truth  is  one  and  self- 
consistent,  and  that  whatever  conflicts  with  the  truth 
is  error.     This  is  no  denial  of  the  theory  of  the  rela- 


22  THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY. 

tivity  of  knowledge,  nor  does  it  imply  the  assumption 
that  a  man  can  become  omniscient ;  but  in  spite  of  the 
relativity  of  knowledge,  and  in  spite  of  the  insufficiency 
of  our  means  of  investigating  all  the  details  of  the 
immeasurable  universe,  we  must  remain  assured  that 
man  can  discern  between  truth  and  error,  he  can  solve 
the  various  problems  with  which  he  is  confronted,  and 
he  can  realise,  at  least  in  part,  and  step  by  step,  the 
ideal  of  orthodoxy. 

Science  has  made  many  new  discoveries  in  this 
century  and  has  established  truths  which  widen  our 
spiritual  horizon  and  deepen  our  philosophical  under- 
standing. Under  the  conditions  it  is  but  natural  that 
our  religious  beliefs,  too,  will  have  to  be  revised  and 
restated.  They  must  be  purified  in  the  furnace  of 
scientific  critique,  and  I  trust  that  thereby  they  will 
not  lose  in  religious  significance.  On  the  contrary, 
they  can  only  gain  in  every  respect  ;  and  after  the 
fusing  and  refining  religion  will  be  purer  and  shine 
brighter  than  ever. 

There  is  no  need  either  to  defend  or  to  denounce 
the  old  orthodoxy,  but  it  is  important  to  understand 
the  nature  of  the  ideal  of  orthodoxy  and  to  propound 
on  this  basis  a  new  conception  of  orthodoxy  which  is 
the  only  possible  ground  of  a  reconciliation  of  Reli- 
gion with  Science.  Agnosticism  will  not  save  us,  and 
blind  faith  has  no  warrant,  but  we  must  broaden  both 
our  science  and  our  religion  until  our  religion  becomes 
scientific,  and  our  science  religious.  On  the  one  hand, 
we  must  scientifically  and  fearlessly  investigate  the 
eternal  psychical,  social,  and  cosmic  facts  upon  which 
religion  rests  ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  we  must  rec- 
ognise the  divinity  of  scientific  truth,  imbue  it  with 
religious  devotion,  and  seek  its  religious  significance. 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY.  23 

How  often  has  Religion  been  denounced  in  the 
name  of  Science  as  superstition,  and  how  often  has 
Science  been  pilloried  in  the  name  of  Religion  as  un- 
godly and  profane!  Scientists  may  err  and  religious 
doctrines  may  be  wrong,  but  Science  cannot  be  anti- 
religious  and  Religion  cannot  be  anti-scientific;  for 
what  is  Science  but  the  search  for  truth,  according  to 
the  best,  the  most  reliable,  and  most  accurate  methods 
of  investigation,  and  what  is  Religion  but  the  love  of 
truth  applied  to  practical  life! 

It  is  understood  that  we  must  be  on  our  guard  not 
to  accept  the  opinion  of  a  scientist  as  genuine  Science, 
yet  we  should  not  denounce  Science  itself  or  the  prin- 
ciples of  Science.  However  much  we  may  distrust 
the  calculation  of  an  example,  and  the  logical  con- 
clusions of  a  syllogism,  we  cannot  question  the  re- 
liability of  arithmetic  or  the  trustworthiness  of  logic. 

Such  is  the  narrowness  of  our  traditional  concep- 
tions of  Science  and  Religion,  that  both  are  sought 
in  their  externalities.  Religion  is  defined  as  a  belief 
in  dogmas,  or  as  worship  of  one  or  several  gods,  or 
as  the  practice  of  ceremonies,  such  as  incense  burn- 
ing, baptising,  and  mass-reading,  while  Science  is 
described  as  a  mere  collecting,  classifying,  and  col- 
lating of  facts.  And  it  is  noteworthy  that  there  are 
scientists  who  misunderstand  the  spirit  of  Science  and 
there  are  clergymen  who  have  no  idea  of  the  meaning 
of  religion.  How  is  that  possible?  Indeed  it  is  nat- 
ural ;  for  the  routine  workers  in  both  fields  are  so  pre- 
occupied with  the  exact  observation  of  their  traditional 
practices  that  they  become  absolutely  unfit  to  under- 
stand the  significance  of  their  professions  in  the  uni- 
versal economy  of  mankind. 

And  can  there  be  any  doubt  about  the  cause  of  the 


24  THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY. 

conflict  between  a  one-sided  Science  and  one-sided 
Religion?  The  cause  of  the  conflict  is  on  the  one 
hand  the  paganism  of  those  who,  forgetful  of  the  fact 
that  dogmas  are  symbols,  urge  a  belief  in  the  letter, 
which  inextricably  implicates  them  more  and  more  in 
absurdities  until  they  begin  to  hate  reason  and  decry 
the  light  of  science  because  it  blinds  their  eyes.  On 
the  other  hand  we  are  confronted  with  a  lack  of  trust 
in  truth  that  is  widely  spread  among  the  men  of 
science.  There  are  many  scientists  who  judge  reli- 
gious questions  from  their  limited  field  of  inquiry,  and 
imagine  that  the  lower  spheres  of  nature  are  the  whole 
of  nature.  Chemistry  is  expected  to  solve  the  prob- 
lems of  psychology,  morality  is  subsumed  under  zool- 
ogy, and  science  is  identified  with  materialism.  Man 
because  he  is  an  animal  is  supposed  to  be  a  beast. 
This  is  no  exaggeration,  for  such  and  similar  state- 
ments have  been  actually  made  by  prominent  nat- 
uralists. No  wonder  that,  where  such  a  confusion  of 
thought  prevails  those  who  set  their  trust  in  the  letter 
of  their  sacred  traditions  will  glory  in  the  bankruptcy 
of  science  as  being  the  best  evidence  of  the  truth  of  re- 
ligion, while  science  will  fall  a  prey  to  agnosticism  and 
pessimism.  No  lesser  authority  than  Huxley  pro- 
nounced the  dreary  theory  that  nature  and  the  laws  of 
nature,  including  the  laws  that  govern  the  social  rela- 
tions of  man,  are  intrinsically  immoral. 

Here  is  not  the  place  to  refute  the  self-contradictory 
argument  of  those  who  rejoice  in  the  alleged  bank- 
ruptcy of  Science  and  vainly  attempt  by  logical  falla- 
cies to  prove  the  fallaciousness  of  reason.  Suffice  it 
to  say  that  the  extinction  of  the  light  of  Science  will 
never  make  Religion  brighter.  The  moon  is  better 
seen  when  the  sun  is  hidden ;   but  if  you  extinguish 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY.  25 

the  sun,  even  the  moon  will  cease  to  shine.  By  ren- 
dering the  Logos  illogical,  you  not  only  make  Science 
impossible,  but  also  change  Religion  into  the  super- 
stition of  mere  traditionalism.  The  acceptance  or  re- 
jection of  Science  means  the  parting  path  between 
genuine  Religion  and  superstition. 

What  is  Science  that,  in  the  name  of  Religion,  it 
should  be  abused  and  denounced?  Science  formulates 
the  facts  of  our  experience  in  natural  laws  ;  it  searches 
for  and  describes  the  eternal  of  nature.  Thus  science 
is  the  embodiment  of  the  immutable  world-order  of 
the  Logos  that  was  in  the  beginning,  of  God  in  His 
revelation,  and  truly,  "this  is  the  stone  which  was  set 
at  naught  of  the  builders,  which  is  become  the  head 
of  the  corner."     (Acts,  iv.,  n.) 

Science  offers  a  description  of  experience  from 
which  the  purely  subjective  elements  have  been  dis- 
carded. Science  eliminates  sentiment,  passions,  and 
prejudice,  and  undertakes  to  establish  objective  truth. 
Science  drops  the  human  of  man  ;  it  liberates  him  from 
the  limitations  of  the  senses,  and  reveals  before  his 
mental  vision  the  secret  inter-relation  of  cause  and 
effect,  and  the  order  of  immutable  laws.  In  a  word, 
Science  is  super-human  ;  it  is  the  Jacob's  ladder,  which 
at  its  bottom  touches  the  world  of  sense,  while  its  top 
reaches  into  the  heaven  of  spirit. 

Whenever  God  speaks  to  man,  it  is  not  in  the 
earthquake  of  bigotry  or  dogma,  nor  in  the  fire  of 
fanaticism,  but  he  comes  in  the  still  small  voice,  and 
the  still  small  voice  is  heard  in  Science,  for  Science  is 
an  utter  surrender  of  what  we  wish  to  believe  to  a  rec- 
ognition of  the  actual  fact.  Science  is  a  hushing  of 
all  thought  of  self,  so  as  to  give  room  to  a  calm  con- 
templation of  truth. 


26  THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY. 

If  you  want  a  Religion  that  is  truly  catholic,  let  it 
be  in  accord  with  Science. 

Catholic  is  that  which  is  universally  acceptable, 
and  what  is  more  catholic  than  Science?  For  the 
establishment  of  a  Catholic  Religion,  therefore,  we 
must  select  the  objectivity  of  scientific  truth  as  the 
cornerstone.  This  and  nothing  else  is  the  eternal 
Logos  which  is  exemplified  in  the  noble  lives  of  the 
prophets,  and  the  incarnation  of  which  constitutes  the 
sonship  of  God.  This  and  nothing  else  is  the  basis  of 
Religion ;  and  no  man  can  lay  another  foundation. 

Science  is  sometimes  erroneously  supposed  to  be 
a  human  invention ;  it  is  represented  as  the  truth  of 
man,  which  is  contrasted  with  the  divine  revelation  of 
religious  dogmas  as  being  the  truth  of  God.  But 
Science  is  not  of  human  make ;  Science  cannot  be 
fashioned  by  man  as  he  pleases ;  Science  is  stern  and 
unalterable  ;  it  is  a  revelation  which  cannot  be  invented 
but  must  be  discovered.  There  is  a  holiness  in  mathe- 
matics, and  there  is  ethics  in  the  multiplication-table. 
On  the  other  hand,  dogmas  such  as  the  various 
churches  have  formulated  as  their  platforms,  are  the 
expressions  of  human  opinions.  They  have  been 
framed  by  the  religious  leaders  of  the  past  and  have 
been  accepted  or  rejected  through  majority  decisions 
of  so-called  oecumenical  councils.  They  are,  I  grant, 
sacred  documents  of  what  our  ancestors  thought  to  be 
the  truth  ;  they  have  been  cast  in  the  mould  of  mighty 
personalities,  but  they  are  merely  a  reflexion  of  the 
spirit  of  their  age,  including  all  its  noble  aspirations 
and  shortcomings. 

Our  traditions  and  the  formulations  of  belief,  as 
set  forth  in  the  Credos  of  former  centuries,  are  un- 
questionably important  statements  ;  they  must  be  con- 


THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY.  27 

sidered  and  reconsidered,  and  are  in  a  sense  author- 
itative, as  coming  from  men  whom  we  respect,  but 
they  are  not  a  final  decision  of  all  problems ;  they 
possess  no  absolute  authority  and  can  bind  neither 
our  reason  nor  our  conscience.  It  is  our  sacred  duty 
to  revise  them  again  and  again  in  the  light  of  that 
direct  revelation  of  truth  which  is  always  and  con- 
stantly accessible  to  man.  Man  can  find  salvation 
only  through  a  scrupulous  self-examination  and  a  right 
comprehension  of  the  events  of  life. 

If  you  find  traditional  formulations  of  faith  accept- 
able, let  them  stand  on  the  same  principle  as  scientific 
truths.  Scientific  truths  are  always  liable  to  revision, 
and  no  scientist  makes  the  slightest  objection  to  hav- 
ing his  propositions  revised.  Why  should  theologians 
do  so?  Scientific  truths  once  rightly  formulated  need 
shun  no  criticism,  since  upon  re-examination  they  will 
be  corroborated  ;  and,  if  they  be  misunderstood  or  for- 
gotten, they  can  be  rediscovered. 

Science,  it  is  true,  appears  as  an  enemy  of  the  old 
dogmatism,  which  to  the  unthinking  made  religion 
easy.  Science  discredits  blind  faith  and  rejects  the 
trust  in  the  letter.  It  may  destroy  many  long-cherished 
prejudices  that  have  become  dear  to  us.  But  if  a 
dogma  cannot  stand  scientific  criticism,  if  it  is  not 
true,  how  can  it  comfort  us?  Let  a  dogma  that  is  un- 
true go,  and  have  trust  in  truth.  The  truth,  what- 
ever it  be,  let  us  be  assured,  will  be  the  best.  Truth 
is  better  than  the  most  beautiful  dream,  and,  if  truth 
appears  bitter  at  first  sight,  let  us  be  patient.  If 
Science  destroys,  it  is  sure  to  give  us  something  better. 

While  dogmas,  viz.,  the  platforms  of  the  various 
churches,  are  man-made,  we  should  not  forget  that 
they  nevertheless  reflect  the  truth  of  a  revelation  that 


28  THE   NEW  ORTHODOXY. 

is  superhuman.  They  may  not  be  true  in  their  letter, 
yet  are  they  full  of  meaning.  The  truths  of  this  mean- 
ing appear  in  a  new  light  with  ever)-  advance  of  civil- 
isation and  will  be  better  understood  at  every  stage 
reached  by  Science.  Let  us  always  bear  in  mind  that 
Religion,  although  it  must  be  one  with  Science,  is  not 
Science  ;  the  province  of  Religion  is  the  broad  field  of 
practical  life,  and  its  aim  is  to  teach  moral  truths  to 
the  masses,  not  by  proving  them  in  logical  deductions, 
but  by  explaining  them  in  allegories,  and  the  symbolic 
nature  of  ecclesiastical  dogmas  has  never  been  doubted 
except  by  the  most  narrow-minded  dogmatists.  The 
Church  actually  calls  the  confession  of  faith  a  "sym- 
bolum,"* and  Christ  declared  that  he  spoke  in  par- 
ables only.  It  is  a  perversion  of  the  fundamental 
meaning  of  our  religious  revelation  to  demand  a  belief 
in  the  letter  where  confessedly  from  the  beginning 
nothing  but  a  symbolic  expression  of  a  deeper  mystery 
was  offered. 

Neither  the  prophets,  nor  Christ,  nor  the  apostles 
ever  intended  to  set  up  a  system   of  revelation  that 

*The  word  symbolum  [av^a.Kkov)  is  derived  from  the  Greek  o-uju/3aAAeu\ 
to  throw  together,  meaning  the  fitting  together  of  the  two  pieces  of  a  ring  or 
amulet  broken  in  twain.  There  was  in  ancient  Greece  the  institution  of 
mutual  hospitality  among  certain  families  in  various  cities,  which  was  hered- 
itary. A  stranger  who  came  to  Athens  from  another  Greek  community  went 
to  the  house  of  that  Athenian  citizen  whose  ancestors  had  entered  into  a 
bond  of  hospitality  with  his  own  ancestors;  and  there  he  presented,  for  the 
sake  of  identification  and  legitimation,  the  broken  piece  of  his  symbolum. 
When  it  fitted  to  the  other  piece  that  was  in  the  hands  of  his  host,  he  was 
recognised  as  a  friend  and  welcomed  as  a  guest.  Thus,  symbolum  originally 
denoted  a  mark  or  sign  by  which  friends  could  recognise  one  another,  and 
came  to  mean  a  ticket  or  a  check,  and  also  the  watchword  of  soldiers.  The 
early  Christians  used  the  word  in  the  sense  of  token  by  which  to  recognise 
one  another.  He  who  knew  the  Christian  symbolum  by  heart  was,  in  times 
of  persecution,  freely  admitted  as  a  friend  to  their  meetings;  and  it  is  nat- 
ural that  the  symbolum  in  the  religious  conviction  of  the  early  Christians  was 
expressed  in  those  very  words  and  allegories  which,  in  accord  with  the  estab- 
lished tradition,  seemed  to  them  the  most  adequate  expression  of  the  truth 
which  they  believed. 


THE   NEW  ORTHODOXY 


29 


should  be  contrary  to  Science.  It  is  true  that  they 
proclaimed  many  truths  which  the  sages  of  their  time 
did  not  grasp, — love  of  enemies  and  charity  ;  but  a 
deeper  comprehension  of  the  facts  of  life  proved  that, 
upon  the  whole,  their  ethical  injunctions  were  right  in 
spite  of  their  apparent  impracticability. 

Let  us  not  be  afraid  to  analyse  religion.  Do  not 
think  that  if  the  nature  of  the  symbol  is  explained, 
nothing  will  be  left.  If  the  myth  is  understood,  we 
become  acquainted  with  the  truth  itself,  which  we 
formerly  had  merely  seen  as  through  a  glass,  darkly, 
in  the  tinsel  deckings  of  poetic  imagery. 

Authority  is  sometimes  contrasted  with  Argument, 
and  the  weight  of  a  name  is  proffered  to  check  the 
boldness  of  progressive  thought.  But  there  is  no  sense 
in  speaking  of  Authority  as  opposed  to  Reason  ;  for  if 
by  Authority  is  meant  the  confidence  which,  we  have 
in  a  person,  what  is  it  but  our  respect  for  the  sound- 
ness of  his  judgment?  Indeed,  there  is  no  authority 
of  person  ;  all  authority  is  ultimately  the  authority  of 
provable  truth ;  it  is  the  authority  of  Science,  and 
rests  upon  the  superpersonal  authority  of  the  divine 
Logos. 

To  praise  Authority  at  the  expense  of  Science  and 
Reason  is  like  accepting  a  greenback  and  repudiating 
the  gold  which  the  greenback  represents.  An  unre- 
deemable greenback  is  a  mere  scrap  of  paper,  and 
authority  not  based  upon  experience  that  can  critically 
be  tested  and  verified  by  renewed  experience,  is  a  mere 
usurpation  of  power.  There  is  no  genuine  authority 
which  when  analysed  is  not  reducible  to  experience, 
and  as  science  is  systematised  experience,  we  should 
think  that  there  is  no  sense  in  the  contrast  between 
Science  and  Authority. 


30  THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY. 

While  we  must  insist  op  the  recognition  of  the 
authority  of  Science,  we  should  not  be  blind  to  the 
great  preference  of  Religion  in  having  been  the  first 
to  point  out  that  justice  is  more  powerful  than  vio- 
lence, and  charity  stronger  than  vengeance.  At  pres- 
ent, Religion  being  naturally  conservative  is  lagging 
behind  Science,  but  there  was  a  time  when  Science 
was  lagging  behind  Religion.  Religious  prophets  have 
in  former  ages  propounded  moral  ideals,  sternly  de- 
manding their  practical  application,  the  rationality  of 
which  the  scientists  of  the  time  were  not  sufficiently 
advanced  to  prove.  Religion  anticipated  many  moral 
truths  wThich  modern  Science  is  only  now  beginning 
to  understand.  When  commending  Science  as  the 
ultimate  criterion  of  truth,  let  us  not  forget  the  great 
service  which  Religion  rendered  while  Science  was 
still  in  its  swaddling  clothes! 

To  sum  up :  any  faith  that  is  irreconcilable  with 
Science  is  doomed.  He  who  rejects  Science  blights 
the  life  of  Religion.  For  the  spirit  of  genuine  Reli- 
gion is  the  same  as  the  spirit  of  genuine  Science. 
Science  is  a  divine  revelation.  Contempt  for  Science 
and  a  deliberate  suppression  of  reason  is  an  intellec- 
tual sin ;  it  is  the  sin  against  the  spirit  which  cannot 
be  forgiven,  but  must,  if  persisted  in,  ultimately  lead 
to  eternal  perdition. 

Therefore,  what  we  need  most  dearly  is  Ortho- 
doxy, but  let  our  Orthodoxy  be  genuine. 


THE    LATE    PROFESSOR    ROMANES'S 
THOUGHTS  ON  RELIGION. 

ALL  THE  publications  of  the  Open  Court  Pub- 
lishing Company,  purely  theoretical  though  they 
may  appear  to  be,  are  brought  out  with  a  very  prac- 
tical end  in  view,  which  is  nothing  less  than  the  re- 
construction of  religion  upon  the  broad  basis  of  mod- 
ern science.  When  we  publish  scientific  works,  like 
Ribot's  psychological  inquiries,  Max  Midler's  exposi- 
tions of  the  nature  of  language  and  of  thought,  Ernst 
Mach's  History  of  Mechanics  and  his  Popular  Lectures 
on  the  methods  of  scientific  research,  we  do  so  because 
we  trust  that  the  spread  of  sound  science  is  the  best 
and  most  effective  propaganda  of  true  religion.  We 
acquired  from  Prof.  George  John  Romanes  the  right 
of  publishing  the  American  edition  of  his  book,  Dar- 
win and  After  Darwin,  because  we  recognise  in  the 
doctrine  of  evolution  one  of  the  most  important  and 
fundamental  religious  truths,  upon  the  basis  of  which 
the  old  traditional  dogmas  will  have  to  be  revised  and 
radically  remodelled  ;  and  we  also  brought  out  the 
American  edition  of  the  same  scientist's  posthumous 
Thoughts  on  Religion.  It  is  this  latter  book  to  which 
the  present  essay  is  devoted,  for  it  seems  necessary  to 
explain   why  we  should  promote  the  circulation  of  a 


32  PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON  RELIGION. 

book  which  in  many  important  points  differs  from  our 
own  solution  of  the  religious  problem. 

In  our  opinion,  science  and  religion  are  not  two 
separate  spheres  which  must  be  kept  apart,  lest  the 
one  should  interfere  with  the  other ;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, both  form  integral  parts  of  man's  spiritual  being 
and  are  closely  interwoven  as  the  web  and  woof  of  our 
souls.  Science  is  the  search  for  truth,  including  the 
results  of  the  search  ;  it  is  the  best  recognition  of  the 
truth  according  to  the  most  accurate  and  painstaking 
methods  at  our  command  ;  and  religion  is  the  endeavor 
to  lead  a  life  in  agreement  with  the  truth.  What  is 
religion  but  truth  in  its  moral  bearings  upon  practical 
life! 

In  opposition  to  this  standpoint  the  Thoughts  on 
Religion  by  Professor  Romanes  are  antiscientific  and 
agnostic ;  indeed,  they  stand  in  certain  respects  so 
much  in  contrast  to  the  labor  of  his  life,  as  to  appear 
a  disavowal  of  his  former  position. 

While  our  religious  convictions  are  quite  definite 
and  outspoken  we  do  not  propound  them  dogmatically. 
We  simply  submit  them  to  the  world  for  considera- 
tion ;  we  solicit  criticism  from  all  quarters,  because 
we  trust  that  they  can  stand  the  severest  strictures. 
However,  supposing  they  could  be  proved  to  be  erro- 
neous, we  shall  not  hesitate  to  publicly  confess  our 
errors ;  for  it  is  not  our  aim  to  propagate  our  views 
because  they  are  ours,  but  because  we  believe  that 
they  are  true.  If  it  be  right  that  we  must  in  religious 
questions  sacrifice  our  intellect  and  cease  thinking,  let 
the  truth  prevail. 

When  the  doctrine  of  evolution  first  dawned  upon 
Romanes,  it  came  to  him,  not  as  a  religious  idea,  but 
as   a   revolutionary   doctrine,    which    was    slowly   but 


PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON  RELIGION.  33 

radically  destroying  the  very  basis  of  his  most  sacred 
belief ;  and  in  order  to  understand  the  struggles  which 
at  that  time  distracted  the  mind  of  the  young  scientist, 
we  ought   to  bear  in  mind  that  he  was  in  his  inmost 
nature  not  only  deeply  religious,  but  even  uncommonly 
reverent  and  pious.    Judging  from  his  essay  on  Prayer, 
which  he  wrote  in  1873,  when  still   a  youth,  and  by 
which  he  gained  the  Burney  Prize  at  Cambridge,  he 
was  possessed  of  a  childlike  trust  in  the  Lord,  his 
Creator  and  Heavenly  Father,  whom  he  regarded  as 
governing  the  world  by  general  laws.    Would  a  youth 
so   settled  in  his   convictions  give  up  his  faith  when 
confronted  with   scientific  conceptions  irreconcilable 
with  the  errors  of  his  traditional  religion?  How  could 
he  help  it?   Science  is  not  of  human  make  ;  science  is 
the  superhuman  power  of  the  silent  voice  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  who  reveals  himself  to  mankind  in  an  accu- 
mulative revelation,  and  no  one  can  withdraw  himself 
from  its  irresistible  influence. 

Romanes  had  thoroughly  imbibed  the  rigid  defini- 
tions of  the  traditional  dogmatism.  In  order  to  sub- 
stantiate the  so-called  orthodox  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity our  ecclesiastical  instructors  have  gotten  into 
the  habit  of  telling  us  again  and  again  that  there  is  no 
religion  save  such  as  is  theistic,  and  that  there  is  no 
theism,  save  such  as  is  a  belief  in  a  personal  God,  and 
a  personal  God  means  a  distinct  individual  being  with 
an  ego-consciousness  like  that  found  in  man,  only  on 
an  infinitely  higher  plane— a  view  which  we  call  an- 
thropotheism.  Accepting  explanations  of  religion, 
such  as  these,  it  was  natural  that  Romanes,  as  soon 
as  he  became  convinced  of  the  errors  of  his  narrow 
church-theism,  should  fall  a  prey  to  a  desolate  scepti- 
cism, and   already  in  1876,  if  not  sooner,  he   wrote   a 


34  PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON  RELIGION. 

book  entitled  A  Candid  Examination  of  Theism  by  Physi- 
cus*  which  analyses  the  crude  conception  of  the  tradi- 
tional God-idea,  and  finds  it  wanting. 

We  quote  the  following  passage  from  the  book, 
which  is  sufficient  evidence  of  the  author's  sincerity : 

"And  now,  in  conclusion,  I  feel  it  is  desirable  to  state  that 
any  antecedent  bias  with  regard  to  Theism  which  I  individually 
possess  is  unquestionably  on  the  side  of  traditional  beliefs.  It  is 
therefore  with  the  utmost  sorrow  that  I  find  myself  compelled  to 
accept  the  conclusions  here  worked  out ;  and  nothing  would  have 
induced  me  to  publish  them,  save  the  strength  of  my  conviction 
that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  member  of  society  to  give  his  fellows 
the  benefit  of  his  labors  for  whatever  they  may  be  worth.  Just  as 
I  am  confident  that  truth  must  in  the  end  be  the  most  profitable 
for  the  race,  so  I  am  persuaded  that  every  individual  endeavor  if 
unbiassed  and  sincere,  ought  without  hesitation  to  be  made  the 
common  property  of  all  men,  no  matter  in  what  direction  the  re- 
sults of  its  promulgation  may  appear  to  tend.  And  so  far  as  the 
ruination  of  individual  happiness  is  concerned,  no  one  can  have  a 
more  lively  perception  than  myself  of  the  possibly  disastrous  ten- 
dency of  my  work.  So  far  as  I  am  individually  concerned,  the 
result  of  this  analysis  has  been  to  show  that,  whether  I  regard  the 
problem  of  Theism  on  the  lower  plane  of  strictly  relative  probabil- 
ity, or  on  the  higher  plane  of  purely  formal  considerations,  it 
equally  becomes  my  obvious  duty  to  stifle  all  belief  of  the  kind 
which  I  conceive  to  be  the  noblest,  and  to  discipline  my  intellect 
with  regard  to  this  matter  into  an  attitude  of  the  purest  scepticism. 
And  forasmuch  as  I  am  far  from  being  able  to  agree  with  those 
who  affirm  that  the  twilight  doctrine  of  the  '  new  faith '  is  a  desir- 
able substitute  for  the  waning  splendor  of  'the  old,'  I  am  not 
ashamed  to  confess  that  with  this  virtual  negation  of  God  the  uni- 
verse to  me  has  lost  its  soul  of  loveliness  ;  and  although  from  hence- 
forth the  precept  to  '  work  while  it  is  day  '  will  doubtless  but  gain  an 
intensified  force  from  the  terribly  intensified  meaning  of  the  words 
that  '  the  night  cometh  when  no  man  can  work,'  yet  when  at  times 
I  think,  as  think  at  times  I  must,  of  the  appalling  contrast  between 
the  hallowed  glory  of  that  creed  which  once  was  mine,  and  the 

*The  book  appeared  in  1878  (at  Trubner's),  and  we  read  in  the  preface 
that  it  was  written  several  years  before,  but  had  been  left  unpublished. 


PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON  RELIGION.  35 

lonely  mystery  of  existence  as  now  I  find  it, — at  such  times  I  shall 
ever  feel  it  impossible  to  avoid  the  sharpest  pang  of  which  my  nat- 
ure is  susceptible.  For  whether  it  be  due  to  my  intelligence  not 
being  sufficiently  advanced  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  age,  or 
whether  it  be  due  to  the  memory  of  those  sacred  associations  which 
to  me  at  least  were  the  sweetest  that  life  has  given,  I  cannot  but 
feel  that  for  me,  and  for  others  who  think  as  I  do,  there  is  a  dread- 
ful truth  in  those  words  of  Hamilton,  — Philosophy  having  become 
a  meditation,  not  merely  of  death,  but  of  annihilation,  the  precept 
know  thyself  has  become  transformed  into  the  terrific  oracle  to 
CEdipus  :    '  Mayest  thou  ne'er  know  the  truth  of  what  thou  art.'  " 

While  Romanes  pursued  his  scientific  work  un- 
swervingly, completing  works  on  The  Mental  Evolu- 
tion in  Man,  The  Mental  Evolution  in  Animals  and  Ani- 
mal Intelligence,  and  beginning  his  Darwin  and  After 
Darwin,  he  wrote  several  essays  bearing  on  religion. 
They  are ; 

1.  "Mind  and  Motion."  A  lecture,  published  in 
The  Contemporary  Review,  July,  1885,  p.  74. 

2.  "The  World  as  an  Eject,"  published  in  The 
Contemporary  Review  in  1886,  p.  44. 

3.  "The  Evidence  of  Design  in  Nature,"  a  paper 
read  before  the  Aristotelian  Society  in  1889,  and  pub- 
lished in  its  proceedings  as  a  contribution  to  a  Sym- 
posium. 

4.  Three  articles  on  the  "Influence  of  Science 
Upon  Religion,"  written  in  1889,  but  remaining  un- 
published for  unknown  reasons. 

In  these  essays  Professor  Romanes  takes  an  un- 
equivocal stand  on  the  ground  of  monism,  yet  when 
he  comes  to  the  question  of  theism  he  assumes  an  at- 
titude of  agnosticism  which  does  not  venture  to  decide 
the  problem  but  "leaves  a  clear  field  of  choice  be- 
tween theism  and  atheism. "  The  secret  reason  of  his 
position  which   probably  was   hidden    from    his   own 


36  PROFESSOR   ROMANES  ON  RELIGION. 

mind  was  in  our  opinion  this  :  he  felt  instinctively 
that  there  was  some  truth  in  theism,  yet  he  could  not 
discover  by  his  reasoning  powers  what  it  was.  He 
saw  the  errors  of  the  narrow  church-theism,  but  he 
did  not  venture  to  broaden  his  idea  of  God  so  as  to 
conform  it  to  his  better  scientific  insight. 

Professor  Romanes's  world-conception  coincided 
with  the  monism  of  The  Monist  in  all  important  points 
except  in  one — his  agnostic  reservation  of  leaving  the 
question  of  theism  undecided.  I  took  the  occasion  to 
discuss  our  differences  in  an  editorial  article  (which 
appeared  in  Vol.  III.,  No.  2,  pp.  249-257  of  The  Mo- 
nist} hoping  that  he  would  either  refute  my  strictures 
and  fortify  his  arguments  or  alter  his  position  which 
appeared  to  me  half-hearted  and  untenable,  and  adopt 
a  more  scientific  God-conception.  At  that  time  Pro- 
fessor Romanes's  health  broke  down  and  I  did  not 
consider  it  proper  to  urge  a  reply  from  him  before  he 
would  have  thoroughly  recovered.  He  went  in  the 
winter  of  1892-1893  to  Madeira,  and  it  is  probable 
that  he  never  read  what  I  had  to  say  about  his  agnos- 
tic view  of  theism. 

The  agnostic  reserve  of  Professor  Romanes's  posi- 
tion might  have  easily  appeared  to  his  readers  as  an 
unwillingness  to  decide  a  dilemma,  which,  whatever 
horn  he  chose,  could  only  involve  him  in  troubles 
of  various  kinds ;  but  the  fact  is  that  he  was  sorely 
perplexed  in  his  own  mind.  On  the  religious  problem 
all  his  sympathies  were  enlisted  against  his  rational 
faculties,  and  he  saw  no  other  hope  for  the  defence  of 
the  faith  which  he  so  dearly  but  vainly  longed  for, 
than  by  denying  his  rational  faculties  the  right  to  have 
anything  to  say  in  the  matter,  and   this,  his  attitude, 


PROFESSOR  ROMAN  KS  ON  RELIGION.  37 

he  called,  in  distinction  to  the  Spencerian  agnosti- 
cism, "pure  agnosticism." 

Between  the  lines  of  Romanes's  Thoughts  on  Reli- 
gion we  can  see  the  distress  of  his  soul.  What  a  poor 
evidence  is  agnosticism  !  It  is  like  a  straw  to  which 
a  drowning  man  desperately  but  vainly  clings.  For 
it  goes  without  saying  that  agnosticism  of  every  color 
is  as  much  favorable  to  dogmatic  Christianity,  to  Mo- 
hammedanism, Brahmanism,  theosophy,  and  mysti- 
cism of  any  description,  as  to  Freethought  and  Nihil- 
ism. 

With  such  sentiments  Professor  Romanes  pon- 
dered in  the  last  year  of  his  life  on  the  problems  of 
theism,  faith,  free  will,  the  existence  and  origin  of 
evil,  causation  and  creation,  regeneration,  revelation, 
the  miracles,  Christian  dogmas,  such  as  the  Trinity, 
and  Incarnation,  the  fall  of  Adam,  and  Christian  de- 
monology.  The  notes  which  he  wrote  down  on  these 
topics  a  few  months  before  his  death  were  originally 
intended  to  counteract  or  offset  in  a  measure,  to  his 
own  or  other  people's  satisfaction,  the  propositions 
contained  in  the  Candid  Examination  of  Theism  by 
Physicus.  He  expected  to  work  out  a  book  on  the 
subject  which  should  appear  under  the  title  A  Candid 
Examination  of  Religion  by  Metaphysicus,  for  he  had 
found  in  the  metaphysical  x  the  sole  place  of  safety 
for  the  God  of  Christianity.  After  his  death  the  notes 
were  handed  to  the  Rev.  Charles  Gore,  Canon  of 
Westminster  and  a  friend  of  the  deceased  scientist, 
who  was  to  do  with  them  what  he  thought  best.  Canon 
Gore  decided  upon  their  publication  together  with 
other  materials  and  his  own  editorial  comments,  and 
the  book  bears   the  title  "  Thoughts  on  Religion,  by  the 


3§  PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON  RELIGION. 

late  George  John  Romanes,  Edited   by  Charles  Gore, 
M.  A.,  Canon  of  Westminster."* 
The  book  contains  : 

1.  Two  essays  by  Romanes  on  the  "Influence  of 
Science  Upon  Religion,"  written  in  1891,  the  third 
essay  being  omitted,  because,  as  the  editor  declares, 
"Romanes's  views  on  the  relation  between  science 
and  faith  in  revealed  religion  are  better  and  more  ma- 
turely expressed  in  the  notes"  (pp.  37-88). 

2.  The  Notes  for  a  work  on  A  Candid  Examina- 
tion of  Religion  (pp.  91-183). 

3.  Editorial  Comments.  Both  parts  open  with 
editorial  prefaces  (pp.  5-33,  p.  105,  and  pp.  91-96), 
and  the  whole  book  closes  with  a  "Note  by  the  Edi- 
tor "  (p.  184). 

Mr.  Gore  claims  that  "both  Essays  and  Notes  rep- 
resent the  same  tendency  of  a  mind  from  a  position  of 
unbelief  in  the  Christian  revelation  toward  one  of  be- 
lief in  it"  (p.  6);  and  although  Romanes's  conviction 
cannot  be  described  as  "a  position  of  settled  ortho- 
doxy," although  he  did  not  recover  "the  activity  or 
habit  of  faith,"  we  are  told  (on  p.  184)  that  he  yet 
"returned  before  his  death  to  that  full,  deliberate 
communion  with  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  which  he 
had  for  so  many  years  been  conscientiously  compelled 
to  forego. " 

There  are  people  who  think  that  there  is  no  salva- 
tion except  in  the  Church.*  For  their  benefit  be  it 
stated  that  such  a  man  as  Professor  Romanes  was  in 
the  darkest  days  of  his  boldest  scepticism  a  better 
Christian  than  many  a  minister  and  preacher,  who 
finds  no  difficulty  in  avowing  allegiance  to  the  thirty- 
nine  articles  of  the  Anglican  Church. 

*  The  Open  Court  Pub.  Co.,  Chicago  and  London. 


PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON  RELIGION.  39 

We  attach  to  the  book  a  great  importance,  for  it 
proves  the  depth  of  Romanes's  religious  sentiment. 
There  may  be  a  doubt  whether  it  was  wise  and  just  to 
publish  the  notes — just  toward  the  sacred  memory  of 
the  deceased ;  and  we  feel  sure  that  many  friends  of 
the  late  Professor  Romanes  will  regret  the  appearance 
of  the  booklet,  for  the  notes  are  quite  unfinished  and 
incoherent.  Indeed,  the  looseness  of  argumentation 
indicates  that  their  author,  when  he  penned  them, 
was  no  longer  at  his  best.  Nevertheless,  we  believe 
Canon  Gore  was  right  in  not  withholding  them  from 
the  world,  because  Romanes  was  great  enough  even 
for  his  weaker  productions  to  command  a  general  in- 
terest, the  more  so  as  they  throw  a  searchlight  into 
the  most  secret  recesses  of  his  innermost  soul ;  and  it 
is  of  interest  to  us  to  know  not  only  how  a  man  like 
Romanes  argued  but  also  what  he  longed  for  and  on 
what  side  his  sympathies  were  most  strongly  enlisted. 
Taking  the  notes  as  they  stand,  and  bearing  in  mind 
that  their  author's  life  was  cut  short  before  he  could 
revise  them  and  work  his  way  out  from  the  narrow- 
ness of  agnosticism  into  a  clear  comprehension  of  the 
glory  of  true  religion,  we  take  them  as  witnesses  of 
Romanes's  deep  love  of  God,  whom  he  still  harbored 
in  his  heart  after  his  mind  through  scientific  investi- 
gations had  lost  belief  in  his  existence. 

We  can  now  understand  what  an  abyss  of  desola- 
tion lies  in  the  question  which  Romanes  uttered  in 
the  concluding  chapter,  page  418,  of  the  first  volume 
of  Darwin  and  After  Darwin,  "Where  is  now  thy 
God?"  And  his  answer  bids  us  be  resigned.  He 
says:  "And  when  the  cry  of  Reason  pierces  the  heart 
of  Faith,  it  remains  for  Faith  to  answer  now  as  she 
has  always  answered  before— and  answered  with  that 


40  PROFESSOR   ROMANES  ON    RELIGION. 

trust  which  is  at  once  her  beauty  and  her  life — Verily, 
thou  art  a  God  that  hidest  thyself." 

Concerning  Professor  Romanes's  progress  from  a 
position  of  unbelief  toward  one  of  belief,  we  are  un- 
able to  discover  any  evidence  of  great  consequence. 
For  the  agnostic  position  as  the  sole  refuge  for  believ- 
ers is  already  indicated  in  the  Candid  Examination  oj 
Tlieism.      Even  here  Romanes  says  : 

"Although  the  latter  deductions  have  clearly  shown  the  exist- 
ence of  Deity  to  be  superfluous  in  a  scientific  sense,  the  formal 
considerations  in  question  have  no  less  clearly  opened  up  beyond 
the  sphere  of  science  a  possible  locus  for  the  existence  of  Deity; 
so  that  if  there  are  any  facts  supplied  by  experience  for  which  the 
atheistic  deductions  appear  insufficient  to  account,  we  are  still  free 
to  account  for  them  in  a  relative  sense  by  the  hypothesis  of  The- 
ism. And,  it  may  be  urged,  we  do  find  such  an  unexplained  resi- 
duum in  the  correlation  of  general  laws  in  the  production  of  cos- 
mic harmony." 

On  the  other  hand,  instead  of  retracting  his  opin- 
ions in  the  Notes,  Romanes  expressly  retained  them, 
only  proposing  several  important  modifications  and 
limitations.  While  he  feels  that  "further  thought 
has  enabled"  him  "to  detect  serious  errors  or  rather 
oversights,"  in  his  book  he  still  thinks  "that  from  the 
premises  there  laid  down  the  conclusions  result  in 
due  logical  sequence."  He  continues,  "as  a  matter 
of  mere  ratiocination,  I  am  not  likely  ever  to  detect 
any  serious  flaws,  especially  as  this  has  not  been  done 
by  anybody  else  during  the  many  years  of  its  exist- 
ence." 

Romanes  finds  two  faults  with  his  former  work  : 
undue  confidence  in  merely  syllogistic  conclusions, 
and  a  lack  of  care  in  examining  the  foundations  of  his 
criticism.      He  says : 

"The  metaphysics  of  Christianity  maybe  all   false  in  fact. 


PROFESSOR   ROMANES   ON   RELIGION.  4 1 

and  yet  the  spirit  of  Christianity  may  be  true  in  substance,  i.  e.,  it 
may  be  the  highest  'good  gift  from  above'  as  yet  given  to  man." 

How  true!  But  granted  that  it  is  true,  should  we 
not  rouse  ourselves  to  investigate  what  is  the  spirit  of 
Christianity  so  that  we  may  do  away  with  its  false 
metaphysics?  Professor  Romanes  turns  for  help  to 
the  wrong  door.  Agnosticism,  even  Professor  Ro- 
manes's "pure  agnosticism,"  will  never  make  us  take 
heed  and  beware  of  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  and 
of  the  Sadducees ;  and  agnosticism,  if  we  are  willing 
to  believe,  makes  us  credulous,  while  if  we  are  un- 
willing to  believe,  makes  us  indifferent,  for  what  is 
the  use  of  our  troubles  if  the  truth  lies  in  some  super- 
scientific  field,  where  we  can  never  hope  to  approach 
it? 

Passing  by  the  comments  on  Adam  and  the  Fall, 
the  blindness  of  reason  with  regard  to  the  doctrines 
of  the  Incarnation  and  the  Trinity  and  similar  utter- 
ances,— topics  the  serious  discussion  of  which  we 
should  not  expect  from  the  author  of  Darwin  and 
After  Darwin, — we  think  that  the  weakest  part  of 
Professor  Romanes's  arguments  are  his  contradictory 
applications  of  his  principle  of  pure  agnosticism.  In 
one  place  he  complains  about  "professed"  agnostics 
who  refused  to  go  to  a  famous  spiritualist,  or  to  test 
the  art  of  a  mind-reader,  and  he  says  of  them  that 
they  violated  their  philosophy  by  their  conduct  (page 
109),  yet  when  dogmatic  questions  appear,  such  as 
whether  Jesus  was  the  son  of  God,  he  argues  that  we 
are,  qud  pure  agnostics,  logically  forbidden  to  touch 
them  (p.  106  and  passim). 

After  all,  Professor  Romanes  makes  less  use  of  his 
agnosticism  than  appears  consistent  and  attempts  a 
reconciliation  between  religion  and  science.    He  says: 


42  PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON  RELIGION. 

"  I  intend  to  take  science  and  religion  in  their  present  highly 
developed  states  as  such  and  show  that  on  a  systematic  examina- 
tion of  the  latter  by  the  methods  of  the  former -,*  the  'conflict' 
between  the  two  maybe  not  merely  '  reconciled  '  as  regards  the 
highest  generalities  of  each,  but  entirely  abolished  in  all  matters 
of  detail  which  can  be  regarded  as  of  any  great  importance." 

The  principle  of  deciding  the  conflict  between  sci- 
ence and  religion  by  "a  systematic  examination  of 
the  latter  by  the  methods  of  the  former"  is  the  funda- 
mental contention  of  that  aspiration  which  we  have 
defined  as  the  "Religion  of  Science."  In  full  agree- 
ment with  the  maxim  of  the  Religion  of  Science,  Ro 
manes  insists  upon  theists  abandoning  all  the  assump- 
tions of  which  they  have  been  guilty,  saying : 

"True  religion  is  indeed  learning  her  lesson  that  something  is 
wrong  in  her  method  of  fighting,  and  many  of  her  soldiers  are  now 
waking  up  to  the  fact  that  it  is  here  that  her  error  lies, — as  in  past 
times  they  woke  up  to  see  the  error  of  denying  the  movement  of 
the  earth,  the  antiquity  of  the  earth,  the  origin  of  species  by  evo- 
lution, etc. 

The  only  possible  condition  to  fighting,  says  Ro- 
manes, lies  in  the  distinction  between  the  natural  and 
the  supernatural, — a  distinction  that  has  always  by 
both  sides  been  regarded  as  sound  (p.  121).  He  now 
proposes  to  efface  the  boundary  line  that  separates 
the  supernatural  from  the  natural  and  says:  "Once 
grant  that  the  supernatural  is  'natural'  and  all  pos- 
sible ground  of  dispute  is  removed."! 

This   is   the    reconciliation   between    religion   and 

*  Italics  are  ours. 

+  Compare  on  the  "  supernatural  "  such  passages  in  The  Monist  editorials 
as  Vol.  V.  No.  1,  p.  99  :  "We  deny  the  existence  of  the  supernatural  in  a  dual 
istic  sense;  but  suppose  we  call  such  higher  features  of  nature  as  appear  in 
man's  ethical  aspirations  hyperphysical  or  supernatural  because  they  rise 
above  the  lower  and  purely  physical  elements  of  the  universe,  we  must  con- 
fess that  the  supernatural  lies  hidden  in  the  natural  and  is  destined  to  grow 
from  it  according  to  the  cosmic  law  of  existence." 


PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON  RELIGION, 


43 


science  which  we  propose,  and  it  may  be  formulated 
in  analogy  with  Christ's  words  :  "Render  unto  Science 
the  things  that  are  Science's!" 

*  * 

There  are  many  more  things  that  ought  to  be  said, 
but  they  are  of  less  importance,  and  we  can  only 
lightly  touch  upon  some  of  them  in  a  few  disconnected 
remarks. 

We  believe  that  Romanes's  distinction  between 
Huxley's  and  Spencer's  agnosticism  is  neither  clear 
nor  correct  (p.  108.)  Professor  Huxley's  agnosticism 
is  not  what  Romanes  defines  it,  viz.,  "an  attitude  of 
reasoned  ignorance  touching  everything  that  lies  be- 
yond the  sphere  of  sense-perception."  Mathematics 
lies  beyond  the  sphere  of  sense-perception,  yet  Hux- 
ley does  not  extend  his  agnosticism  to  mathematical 
methods  or  conclusions. 

The  fact  that  St.  Paul's  epistles  are  regarded  by 
the  critics  as  genuine  is  mentioned  three  times  (pp. 
I55^  l68,  169),  and  it  is  claimed  that  this  is  "enough 
to  show  the  belief  of  Christ's  contemporaries"  (p.  169). 
Indeed!  But  what  of  it?  Have  we  not  sufficient 
evidence  of  the  belief  of  our  own  contemporaries  in 
the  various  Christs  who  have  risen  among  us  ?  Schwein- 
furth  and  Teed  are  living  in  our  midst,  and  the  authen- 
ticity of  their  publications  cannot  be  doubted.  The 
important  question  is  not  whether  or  no  Paul  wrote 
his  epistles,  but  whether  the  ethics  of  the  epistles  is 
good  or  bad  ;  and,  granting  that  Paul  said  many  noble 
things,  I  yet  wish  to  see  the  orthodox  clergyman  who 
would  venture  to  defend  Paul's  low,  not  to  say  vulgar, 
conception  of  marriage!* 

*«•  The  sole  motive  for  marriage  which  St.  Paul  proposes  is,  '  It  is  bett-  i 
marry  than  to  burn.'  The  holiest  instincts  that  would  induce  nun  and  women 


44  PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON   RELIGION. 

Romanes  speaks  of  "some  superadded  faculties  of 
our  mind,"  explaining  them  in  one  place  as  "the 
heart  and  the  will,"  as  the  "religious  instinct,"  and 
other  moral  sentiments,  and  also  as  "spiritual  intui- 
tion," or  an  "organ  of  spiritual  discernment."  He 
glories  in  the  '  <  infinitude  of  mystery  sufficient  to  satisfy 
the  most  exacting  mystic. "  We  say  that  the  "  super- 
added faculties,"  which  are  such  as  man's  conscience, 
his  religious  aspirations  and  moral  ideals,  do  not  lie 
without  the  pale  of  scientific  investigation.  On  the 
contrary,  the  better  we  understand  their  nature,  the 
greater  is  their  chance  of  nobler  development  and 
purification. 

Such  phrases  as  ' '  first  cause  "  and  < '  infinite  mind, " 
which  are  world-combinations  without  sense,  abound 
unduly  in  the  notes  and  help  not  a  little  to  increase 
the  difficulties  which  present  themselves  to  the  mind 
of  Romanes  and  which  have  become  sufficiently  be- 
wildering through  the  sensitiveness  of  his  religious 
nature.* 

Romanes  gave  a  great  deal  of  his  thought  to  the 
problem  of  the  existence  of  pain  in  the  world.  How 
is  it  possible  that  God,  if  he  be  good,  can  allow  his 
creatures  to  be  hopelessly  exposed  to  "hideously 
cruel"  and  terrible  sufferings?     Romanes  says  in  his 

to  join  their  fates  in  a  sacred  alliance  are  utterly  ignored.  Nothing  is  said 
of  the  mutual  sympathy  and  friendship  that  bind  soul  to  soul  much  more 
closely  than  sexual  appetites.  No  consideration  is  taken  of  the  children  to 
be  born,  and  the  very  lowest  desires  alone  are  given  as  an  excuse  for  entering 
into  the  state  of  matrimony,  the  holiness  of  which  St.  Paul  does  not  under- 
stand. His  view  of  marriage  proves  that  he  had  no  right  conception  of  the 
ethics  of  human  sex-relations.  We  admire  St.  Paul  in  many  respects,  but 
we  must  say  that  his  view  of  marriage  is  un-Christian  ;  it  is  unworthy  of  his 
sacred  office  as  an  apostle  :  it  is  a  blemish  in  our  Bible." — Science  a  Religious 
Revelation,  pp.  11-12. 

*For  an  exposition  of  the  errors  which  lie  concealed  in  the  phrase  "first 
cause."  see  Primer  of  Philosophy,  pp.  146  147,  and  Fundamental  Problems,  p.  88 
et  set].     As  to  "  infinite  mind,"  see  Homilies  of  Science,  p.  102  et  seq. 


PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON   RELIGION.  45 

second  essay  on  "The  Influence  of  Science  Upon 
Religion,"  after  speaking  of  the  agonies  of  a  rabbit 
panting  in  the  iron  jaws  of  a  spring  trap  : 

"What  are  we  to  think  of  a  Being  who,  with  yet  higher  fac- 
ulties of  thought  and  knowledge,  and  with  an  unlimited  choice  of 
means  to  secure  His  ends,  has  contrived  untold  thousands  of  mech- 
anisms no  less  diabolical?  In  short,  so  far  as  Nature  can  teach  us, 
or  'observation  can  extend,'  it  does  appear  that  the  scheme,  if  it  is 
a  scheme,  is  the  product  of  a  Mind  which  differs  from  the  more 
highly  evolved  type  of  human  mind  in  that  it  is  immensely  more 
intellectual  without  being  nearly  so  moral." 

The  problem  of  the  existence  of  pain  in  the  world 
is  an  unsolvable  mystery  on  the  hypothesis  of  the 
traditional  theism,  and  no  theory  of  "probation"  can 
satisfactorily  explain  the  difficulty.  But  Romanes 
declares  that,  after  all,  we  are  not  bound  to  adopt  the 
idea  of  a  "carpenter-God,"  as  Mr.  S.  Alexander  calls 
the  anthropomorphic  notion  of  a  Creator  (see  p.  94), 
which  implies  that  the  world-order  is  a  "scheme." 

As  to  God's  responsibility  for  pain,  we  should  bear 
in  mind  that  one  of  the  most  obvious  features  of  an- 
thropomorphism in  the  God-idea  is  the  attribute  of 
"moral  goodness."  In  the  same  way  that  God  is  not 
an  individual  being,  that  he  is  not  a  huge  ego  or  per- 
son like  ourselves,  but  a  superpersonal  omnipresence, 
so  he  is  neither  moral  nor  good  nor  ethical  ;  for  God 
is  the  standard  of  goodness  ;  he  is  the  norm,  conformity 
to  which  is  the  condition  of  ethics  ;  he  is  the  ultimate 
authority  for  all  moral  conduct.  He  is  neither  moral 
nor  immoral,  but  unmoral,  or  let  us  say  "supra- 
moral."  If  God  were  the  carpenter  of  the  world,  he 
would  be  responsible  for  its  laws  and  arrangements 
including  all  the  cruelties  implied  by  them,  and  he 
could  not  escape  the  condemnation  of  immorality. 

Romanes  has  found  the  right  answer  when  he  says  : 


46  PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON  RELIGION. 

"For  aught  that  we  can  tell  to  the  contrary,  it  may  be  quite 
as  'anthropomorphic'  a  notion  to  attribute  morality  to  God  as  it 
would  be  to  attribute  those  capacities  for  sensuous  enjoyment  with 
which  the  Greeks  endowed  their  divinities.  The  Deity  may  be  as 
high  above  the  one  as  the  other — or  rather  perhaps  we  may  say  as 
much  eternal  to  the  one  as  to  the  other.  Without  being  supra- 
moral,  and  still  less  immoral,  He  may  be  un  moral  :  our  ideas  of 
morality  may  have  no  meaning  as  applied  to  Him." 

Such  was  Romanes's  pious  disposition  of  mind 
that,  if  it  ever  had  been  possible  to  defend  the  old 
traditional  dogmatism  before  the  tribunal  of  reason, 
he  would  have  done  so,  and  we  can  repeat  the  quota- 
tion from  Virgil,  which  D.  F.  Strauss  applied  to 
Schleiermacher,  without  hesitation  of  Romanes  : 

"Si  Pergamum  dextra  defendi  posset 
Hac  certe  defensa  fuisset !  " 

There  is  one  more  point  to  be  mentioned.  Pro- 
fessor Romanes  adopted  the  idea  so  often  proclaimed 
in  the  pulpit,  that  "no  one  can  'believe'  in  God,  or 
a  fortiori  in  Christ,  without  also  a  severe  effort  of 
will,"  and  he  adds  : 

"Yet  the  desire  is  not  strong  enough  to  sustain  the  will  in 
perpetual  action,  so  as  to  make  the  continual  sacrifices  which  Chris- 
tianity entails.  Perhaps  the  hardest  of  these  sacrifices  to  an  intel- 
ligent man  is  that  of  his  own  intellect.  At  least  I  am  certain  that 
this  is  so  in  my  own  case." 

Romanes  rummages  his  brain  for  arguments  to 
silence  the  voice  of  reason.      He  says  (p.  167): 

"  The  force  of  Butler's  argument  about  our  being  incompetent 
judges  is  being  more  and  more  increased. 

"The  unbiassed  answer  of  pure  agnosticism  ought  reasonably 
to  be,  in  the  words  of  John  Hunter,  '  Do  not  think  ;  try.'  " 

And  he  tried!  What  tortures  this  man  must  have 
suffered  in  his  eagerness  not  to  think  but  to  believe! 
His  religious  struggles  ma)-  have   been   the   physical 


PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON   RELIGION.  47 

cause  of  his  premature  death;  for  distraction  of  mind 
is  more  injurious  than  overwork.  And  after  all  he 
was  anxious  to  attempt  the  impossible.  We  read  on 
pp.  132-133: 

"Yet  I  cannot  bring  myself  so  much  as  to  make  a  venture  in 
the  direction  of  faith.  For  instance,  regarded  from  one  point  of 
view  it  seems  reasonable  enough  that  Christianity  should  have  en- 
joined the  doing  of  the  doctrine  as  a  necessary  condition  to  ascer- 
taining (i.  e.,  'believing')  its  truth.  But  from  another,  and  my 
more  habitual  point  of  view,  it  seems  almost  an  affront  to  reason 
to  make  any  such  'fool's  experiment,'— just  as  to  some  scientific 
men  it  seems  absurd  and  childish  to  expect  them  to  investigate  the 
'  superstitious  '  follies  of  modern  spiritualism.  Even  the  simplest 
act  of  will  in  regard  to  religion— that  of  prayer— has  not  been  per- 
formed by  me  for  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  century,  simply  because 
it  has  seemed  so  impossible  to  pray,  as  it  were,  hypothetically, 
that  much  as  I  have  always  desired  to  be  able  to  pray,  I  cannot 
will  the  attempt."* 

Is  it  not  a  shame  on  our  Church  dogmatism  to  let 
a  man  like  Romanes,  an  intellectual  giant,  torture 
himself  on  the  rack  in  efforts  to  conform  to  the  re- 
ligion which  he  had  been  taught  to  love  with  all  the 
fervor  of  his  soul?t  Professor  Romanes  imagined  that 

*Kant  condemns  "the  prosopopoeia,"  or  face-making,  of  "hypothetical  " 
prayer  as  hypocrisy,  and  says:  "The  consequence  of  this  is  that  he  who  has 
made  great  moral  progress  ceases  to  pray,  for  honesty  is  one  of  his  principal 
maxims.  And  further,  that  those  whom  one  surprises  in  prayer  are  ashamed 
of  themselves." 

t  How  true  is  what  Mach  says  of  the  conflict  between  science  and  theol- 
ogy! In  his  Science  of  Mechanics,  p.  446,  we  read  :  "  It  would  be  a  great  mis- 
take to  suppose  that  the  phrase  '  warfare  of  science '  is  a  correct  description 
of  its  general  historic  attitude  toward  religion,  that  the  only  repression  of 
intellectual  development  has  come  from  priests,  and  that  if  their  hands  had 
been  held  off,  growing  science  would  have  shot  up  with  stupendous  velocity. 
No  doubt,  external  opposition  did  have  to  be  fought;  and  the  battle  with  it 
was  no  child's  play.  But  investigators  have  had  another  struggle  on  their 
hands,  and  by  no  means  an  easy  one,  the  struggle  with  their  own  precon- 
ceived ideas."  Professor  Romanes  is  the  most  modern  instance  of  th- 
ity  of  the  conflict  which  often  distracts  the  soul  of  a  scientist.  Oh,  what  a 
noble  mind  was  there  o'erthrown-and  by  what  ?  By  his  devotion  to  dogmas, 
the  spirit  of  which  he  felt  to  be  true,  and  the  allegorical  garb  of  which  he 
knew  to  be  full  of  errors. 


48  PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON  RELIGION. 

God  requested  from  him  the  sacrifice  of  his  intellect, 
and  what  was  he  not  willing  to  do  for  God's  sake!  As 
Abraham  went  out  to  sacrifice  his  only  son  Isaac,  so 
Romanes  seriously  tried  to  slaughter  his  reason  on 
the  altar  of  faith. 

My  blood  begins  to  boil  at  the  thought,  for  I  re- 
member my  own  experiences  and  the  dark  hours  of 
despair  in  which  I  had,  against  my  own  will,  lost  my 
God  and  my  religion,  and  felt  all  the  miseries  of  hell. 
However  willing  I  was  to  sacrifice  my  vanity,  my  ego- 
tism, my  pride,  my  pleasures  and  joys,  my  self  and 
my  fondest  hopes,  I  was  yet  unable  to  surrender  my 
better  knowledge,  and  only  after  many  hours  of  sore 
trial  did  I  work  my  way  out  again  into  the  glorious 
liberty  of  the  children  of  God.  I  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  no  such  sacrifice  is  expected  of  us  as  a  sur- 
render of  our  intellect ;  for  our  intellect  is  but  the  re- 
flexion of  God's  nature  in  our  soul.  Man's  reason  is 
the  light  of  his  life  ;  it  is  a  product  of  that  world- 
logos  which  science  traces  in  all  natural  laws,  and  it 
is  the  seal  of  man's  divinity  which  constitutes  his  sim- 
ilarity to  God. 

What  is  the  lesson  of  Romanes's  Thoughts  on  Re- 
ligion ? 

Romanes's  posthumous  work  is  a  mene  tekel  which 
reminds  us  of  the  importance  of  the  religious  prob- 
lem. We  cannot  and  must  not  leave  it  unsettled  in 
worldly  indifference.  We  must  attend  to  it  and  in- 
vestigate it  bravely  and  conscientiously.  We  can  no 
longer  denounce  reason  or  silence  our  intellectual 
needs,  for  it  is  God  himself  who  speaks  in  the  voice 
of  reason ;  and  the  progress  of  science  is  his  most 
glorious  revelation,  which  ecclesiasticism  cannot 
smother.      Indeed,   the   suppression  of   reason  is  the 


PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON    RELIGION.  49 

sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost  which  cannot  be  forgiven 
but  will  inevitably  lead,  if  persisted  in,  to  eternal  per- 
dition. 

The  sad  case  of  Professor  Romanes's  religious 
struggles  reminds  us  of  the  significant  words  of  the 
late  Field-Marshal  von  Moltke  who,  with  reference  to 
dogmatic  religion,  says  in  the  posthumous,  deeply 
religious  Thoughts  of  Comfort,  which  contain  his  con- 
fession of  faith:  "I  am  afraid  that  the  zealot  in  the 
pulpit,  who  will  persuade  where  he  cannot  convince, 
preaches  Christians  out  of  the  church." 

Our  Church  Christianity  is  not  as  yet  free  from 
paganism.  By  paganism  we  understand  a  belief  in 
the  letter  of  parables  or  allegorical  dogmas  to  the 
detriment  of  their  spirit ;  and  tradition  and  habit  com- 
bine to  make  our  theologians  worship  the  letter  that 
killeth.  A  one-sided  training  warps  their  judgment. 
Their  notions  of  God,  the  sacraments,  miracles,  in- 
spiration, prayer,  Christ's  sonship,  and  other  religious 
ideas  are,  as  a  rule,  more  pagan  than  they  themselves 
are  aware  of.  The  constitutions  of  most  churches  are 
so  formulated  as  to  make  a  belief  in  the  literal  mean- 
ing of  symbols  the  test  of  orthodoxy,  and  Christians 
are  urged  to  set  their  trust  upon  myths.  For  the 
higher  education  of  the  clergy  we  would  propose, 
therefore,  that  every  theologian  should  stud)-  at  least 
one  of  the  natural  sciences  or  mathematics.  It  would 
be  the  best  way,  perhaps  the  only  way,  to  teach  them 
the  sternness  of  truth  and  to  dispel  their  anthropo- 
morphic notions  of  God. 

The  narrowness  of  ecclesiasticism  has  estranged 
many  noble  minds  from  religion.  Let  our  clergy  see 
to  it  that  room  be  made  for  intellectuality  in  our 
churches  ;   and  the  light  of  science  will  purify  the  dark 


50  PROFESSOR  ROMANES  ON  RELJCION. 

corners  in  which  the  superstitions  of  past  ages  still 
continue  to  exercise  their  baneful  influence. 

Romanes  has  much  to  say  of  the  inner  voice,  in- 
tuition, and  inspiration,  but  whatever  form  the  sub- 
jective instincts  of  our  religious  nature  may  take,  they 
possess  merely  preliminary  power  of  decision  and  have 
no  authority  in  comparison  with  objectively  demon- 
strable truth.  The  verdict  of  conscience  is  very  valu- 
able, because  it  frequently  reveals  deep  moral  truth 
in  a  prophet's  vision  :  yet  is  it  neither  absolute  nor 
reliable,  for  it  must  seek  its  ratification  before  the 
tribunal  of  science.  So  far  as  human  evolution  has 
gone,  science  alone  is  possessed  of  that  catholicity 
which  is  so  sorely  needed  in  religion. 

There  is  no  peace  of  soul  for  him  whose  religion 
has  not  passed  through  the  furnace  of  scientific  criti- 
cism, where  it  is  cleansed  of  all  the  slag  and  dross  of 
paganism.  If  God  ever  spoke  to  man,  science  is  the 
burning  bush  ;  and  if  there  is  any  light  by  which  man 
can  hope  to  illumine  his  path  so  as  to  make  firm  steps, 
it  is  the  light  of  science.  Let  us,  therefore,  make  re- 
ligion scientific  and  science  religious.  Let  us,  on  the 
one  hand,  imbue  religion  with  the  spirit  of  science, 
with  its  rigorous  criticism,  strict  exactness,  and  stern 
devotion  to  truth ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  let  us  open 
our  eyes  to  the  moral  and  religious  importance  of  the 
results  of  scientific  inquiry.  The  ultimate  aim  of  sci- 
ence is  to  reveal  to  man  the  religion  of  truth. 

Let  the  light  of  science  illumine  both  our  minds 
and  our  sentiments ;  for  science  is  holy,  and  the  light 
of  science  is  the  dwelling-place  of  God. 


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